PEOPLE who visited a hospital in the region are being warned to watch for symptoms of a highly infectious disease.

Visitors to the University Hospital of North Durham between Monday, March 13, and Friday, March 17, may have been exposed to measles.

The health alert followed a positive diagnosis in a male member of hospital staff.

Measles is usually harmless but, in rare cases, it can cause complications and, in extremely rare cases, it can be deadly.

Anyone who visited the hospital at the relevant time and has a raised temperature, cough, runny nose and red and watery eyes is being asked to telephone their GP.

A rash appears a few days later on the neck and body.

Health experts do not want suspected cases to go to doctors' surgeries where they could infect more people.

If someone is severely ill, they should go to an accident and emergency department, but must warn staff when they arrive.

Children under one, those with weakened immune systems, or pregnant women, may be more vulnerable.

Once a common childhood malady, measles is today so rare that there have only been two confirmed cases in the North-East in the past two years.

Confirmation that a male member of staff working at the busy Durham hospital had developed measles led to a general warning being issued by the County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

Experts at the Health Protection Agency's London headquarters confirmed that the Durham case was definitely measles.