Northamptonshire struck by a spate of vomiting with more cases than almost anywhere in East Midlands

Northamptonshire has been struck by a spate of vomiting, with more people turning to their GP for help with sickness symptoms than almost anywhere else in the East Midlands.

A surveillance system run by Public Health England to track symptoms reported at doctors’ surgeries shows a higher-than-normal level of patients complaining of throwing up in Northants.

The system is designed to spot early signs of infectious disease outbreaks in a population.

GPs in the area saw 29 patients suffering from vomiting during the week to Sunday, November 8, the latest reporting period.

That gave the area the second-highest rate of cases out of the eight council areas in the region, with 10 cases per 100,000 people.

The rate across the East Midlands as a whole was 6.9 cases in every 100,000 people.

Northamptonshire’s case count was 47 per cent higher than what would be expected when compared to the national average and 16 per cent up from the previous week.

Vomiting can be a symptom of norovirus, known as the winter vomiting bug, a highly contagious stomach virus that also causes diarrhoea and runs rampant in the colder months.

Norovirus is one of the many viruses which can cause gastroenteritis – an infection of the gastrointestinal tract that leads to diarrhoea and vomiting – alongside bacteria such as salmonella and E.coli, or even parasites.

Both gastroenteritis and diarrhoea are tracked separately in the surveillance system.

In Northamptonshire, doctors saw 20.6 cases of diarrhoea per 100,000 people in the latest week – 22 per cent higher than the England average.

For gastroenteritis, there were 37.3 cases per 100,000, 58 per cent above the national rate.

What about the rest of the East Midlands?

The council areas in the East Midlands ranked from highest to lowest vomiting prevalence last week are:

Nottingham: 13 cases of vomiting per 100,000 people

Northamptonshire: 10

Lincolnshire: 9

Derbyshire: 7

Nottinghamshire: 5

Leicestershire (including Rutland): 3

*No stats for Leicester and Derby