This area of Yorkshire has been identified as a vomiting hotspot

A surveillance system run by Public Health England to track symptoms reported at doctors’ surgeries shows a high level of patients complaining of throwing up in Kirklees.

The system is designed to spot early signs of infectious disease outbreaks in a population.

GPs in the area saw 17 patients suffering from vomiting during the week to November 8, the latest reporting period.

That gave the area the fourth highest rate of cases out of 15 council areas in Yorkshire and the Humber, with 11 cases per 100,000 people.

The rate across Yorkshire and the Humber as a whole was 1.4 in every 100,000 people.

Kirklees case count was 71% higher than what would be expected when compared to the national average.

Vomiting can be a symptom of norovirus, known as the winter vomiting bug, a highly contagious stomach virus that also causes diarrhoea and runs rampant in the colder months.

Norovirus is one of the many viruses which can cause gastroenteritis – an infection of the gastrointestinal tract that leads to diarrhoea and vomiting – alongside bacteria such as salmonella and E.coli, or even parasites.

Both gastroenteritis diarrhoea are tracked separately in the surveillance system.

In Kirklees, doctors saw 18.5 cases of diarrhoea per 100,000 people in the latest week – 10% higher than the England average.

For gastroenteritis, there were 33.8 cases per 100,000, the same as the national rate.

What about the rest of Yorkshire and the Humber?

The council areas in Yorkshire and the Humber ranked from highest to lowest vomiting prevalence last week are:

York: 16 cases per 100,000

North East Lincolnshire: 15 cases per 100,000

East Riding of Yorkshire: 13.6 cases per 100,000

Kirklees: 11 cases per 100,000

Rotherham: 10 cases per 100,000

Doncaster: 10 cases per 100,000

North Lincolnshire: 8 cases per 100,000

Leeds: 6.3 cases per 100,000

Wakefield: 6 cases per 100,000

Barnsley: 5 cases per 100,000

Bradford: 4.7 cases per 100,000

Sheffield: 3 cases per 100,000