Schools in part of the East Midlands are on a health alert after an outbreak of whooping cough at a school in Leicestershire.

The disease has been contracted by 23 pupils at Stathern School in the Vale of Belvoir and several other children are showing early symptoms of infection.

The outbreak first came to light last week and officials from Leicestershire Health Authority were sent in to investigate.

All the pupils and staff at the school are being given antibiotics and a full immunisation programme is being carried out.

'Very distressed'

Schools over the border in Nottinghamshire have also been alerted because some of the infected children come from the Rushcliffe area.

Dr Philip Monk, consultant in communicable diseases at the health authority, said that Stathern School was a small, village school and the first child to contract the infection had spread it to friends.

Dr Monk: "lessons to learn"

"The school only has three classrooms and unfortunately we were unlucky over the Easter period," he told BBC Breakfast News.

"One child who had it, had friends round and they played together. Unfortunately they were from the three classrooms this school teaches from.

"We ended up with lots of people being exposed to whooping cough and catching it."

Dr Monk described the disease as "very unpleasant".

"Some people are only mildly affected.

Booster vaccination

"But for others it is very distressing with spasms of coughing affecting sleep."

The health authority visited the school last Thursday to carry out tests and gave all the children and teachers antibiotics to control the spread of the disease.

In addition, all the children at Stathern Primary School have been given a booster vaccination against whooping cough to further protect them.

Swabs have also been taken from everyone at the school and tests carried out.

Dr Monk said: "If there are things that emerge from this, we will refer them back to the people who advise the Department of Health on immunisation strategies, but that is not necessary at the moment.

"The important thing is to have the four-year-old booster for whooping cough and for us to learn the lessons we are learning here."