Norovirus breaks out at Carlisle's Cumberland Infirmary

Visiting restrictions may be imposed if conditions at the hospital do not improve, health chiefs said

An outbreak of norovirus at a Cumbrian hospital has seen health chiefs issue a plea for some visitors to stay away.

The infection has seen patients at Carlisle's Cumberland Infirmary suffer vomiting and diarrhoea.

The outbreak is understood to have started after a visitor attended a ward with symptoms of the virus.

In a bid to halt a further spread, hospital bosses have asked people to avoid seeing friends and family if they are unwell themselves.

Restrictions may be imposed if the situation does not improve, they added.

Anyone who has shown symptoms of the highly contagious infection within the past 48 hours is asked not to visit patients.

Known as the winter vomiting bug, it affects between 600,000 and one million people in the United Kingdom annually.

Health officials say it is normally a short-lived, self-limiting infection from which people will usually recover within 12 to 60 hours.