A SURGEON has urged people not to confuse suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease in humans with a similar, but totally unrelated illness.

The warning came as two more cases of suspected foot-and-mouth in humans were being investigated by health experts last night.

Tim Stahl, a consultant at Darlington Memorial Hospital, said media interest in the virus' impact on humans had so far ignored hand, foot-and-mouth, a relatively common ailment.

Primarily affecting young children, it is unrelated to the virus that has wreaked havoc in the countryside, yet it too produces ulcers, or a rash, and mild flu symptoms.

Mr Stahl, an orthopaedic surgeon, said he was among several dozen staff at the hospital who contracted hand, foot-and-mouth in the early 1980s.

He warned that patients and even less experienced GPs could easily confuse the symptoms of the far less infectious hand, foot and mouth, also known as Coxsackievirus disease.

"Hand, foot and mouth is a completely different disease," he said. "This information is just not being put across."

Meanwhile, the man whose blisters triggered the concern over foot-and-mouth in humans was last night named as taxi driver Paul Stamper.

The father-of-two, of Dearham, in Cumbria, used his HGV license to get a job with Maff, removing carcasses from farms to a mass burial site.

Last night, he said he "was not feeling too bad", and likened his symptoms to a "bad dose of the flu".

Samples from all three cases have been sent to the Central Public Health Laboratory, in London, but results are not expected until after the weekend.

l People living near foot-and-mouth pyres can suffer health problems, the Government has admitted.

Asthma sufferers can be affected, and people less than 500m from pyres may be exposed to irritants such as sulphur dioxide.

Read more about Foot-and-Mouth here.