ONE of the first Weymouth victims to catch swine flu has described it as ‘10 times worse’ than any flu she has ever suffered.

After being struck down with the virus, Nicola Davies, aged 22, is now confined to her bedroom in Littlemoor.

She told of her ordeal as the bug hit schools in Dorset and as the death toll continued to rise nationwide with a schoolgirl and a doctor struck down.

Nicola, of Magnolia Close, Littlemoor, said that she began to feel ill a few weeks ago with headaches and sickness.

But it wasn’t until Saturday that she was struck down with the full effects of swine flu.

After phoning the NHS Helpline, she was prescribed the antiviral drug Tamiflu and told to stay in her room for five days.

Nicola said: “I woke up in the morning and I just couldn’t stand anymore.

“I’ve had the flu before but this is ten times worse.

“As well as the normal flu symptoms my head’s spinning.

“My throat’s sore.

“I’ve been up all night with sickness and diarrhoea and I’m so dehydrated.”

Nicola was due to start her new job as a waitress at The Ship on Saturday but had to postpone it.

She said that although she had been badly affected she felt the actual virus was not as bad as everyone first feared.

Her mum Deborah Alford said: “We joked that she had swine flu but when she rang the NHS advice line they said she probably did. They said they can’t diagnose properly over the phone but at the moment there are no reports of any other kind of flu so they were going to treat her for it.”

Mrs Alford was told to go to the pharmacy at Asda in Newstead Road, Weymouth, to collect her daughter’s prescription.

Mrs Alford added: “My daughter asked what other family members should do and was told it had all been blown out of proportion and there was no concern. We’re a very close family and have got kids in the family aged from 10 months up, so we are worried.

“I’d rather not get it so we are all trying to be aware.”

Schools in Weymouth and Dorchester have had pupils struck down with suspected swine flu.

Parents are being warned to keep their children off school if flu like symptoms arise.

A SIX-year-old girl and a GP were confirmed as the latest victims of swine flu, taking the number of deaths nationwide linked to the virus to 17.

Chloe Buckley, from north west London, died on Thursday at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington.

A postmortem examination will be carried out to determine if she had any underlying health conditions, Dr Simon Tanner, from NHS London, said.

Meanwhile, Bedfordshire GP Dr Michael Day died on Saturday in the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. A swab test has subsequently shown he had swine flu although his death will be investigated by a coroner to determine its exact cause, a statement from NHS East of England said.

The news comes after the first British patient without underlying health problems died on Friday after contracting swine flu.

The patient, from Essex, died in Basildon.

Health chiefs are preparing to vaccinate the entire population against swine flu, it has emerged.

In what would be the biggest vaccination programme of the last 50 years, experts are already drawing up a priority list of patients to be given immunity before the bug becomes more virulent.

Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead negotiator on swine flu, said: “The high-risk groups will be done at GPs’ surgeries. People are still making decisions over this, but we want to get cracking before we get a second wave, which is traditionally far more virulent.”

He added: “If the virus does (mutate), it can get a lot more nasty, and the idea is to give people immunity.

“But the sheer logistics of dealing with 60 million people can’t be underestimated.”

A PUBLIC health expert said that swine flu was not that easy to catch.

Dr Sue Bennett, director of the Dorset and Somerset Health Protection Unit, said: “Swine flu will not easily pass from person to person.

“You need close and prolonged contact to catch swine flu and that involves having face to face contact with someone for an hour or more and at a distance of one metre or less.”

She added: “Most of the transmission of swine flu in the UK has occurred in family groups or schools because that is where very close contact of this kind takes place.”

More cases of suspected swine flu are being seen locally but laboratory testing is no longer taking place to confirm the diagnosis.

Dr Bennett said: “We do know that there are a number of viruses currently circulating in the local population apart from swine flu.

“If you have no fever, or just a low temperature and symptoms of a cold or sore throat, just treat yourself at home in the usual way.”

She stressed that the evidence so far showed that swine flu itself was no more serious than seasonal flu.