The "millennium bug", which is laying thousands of people low with flu-like symptoms as it sweeps across the country, shows no signs of abating in south Essex.

Ambulance services in Essex have been stretched to the limit with sufferers dialling 999, and Chelmsford GP Dr John Cormack reckons it will get worse before it gets better.

Even those people who took the precaution of having a flu jab have not managed to escape the misery.

Even so, medics in south Essex insist the situation is no worse than most other years.

Dr Cormack said: "There are a lot of sick people, but it happens every year. People get together more over Christmas and it spreads more easily. It happened last year and will happen again next."

A spokeswoman for Basildon Hospital agreed: "The situation is pretty much the same as every January and our throughput of patients is about usual for January. It is always very busy past new year."

She said the hospital had managed to cope with the annual surge of emergencies and hoped that the public had taken notice of the Government's much-publicised campaign and consulted pharmacists or GPs rather than called out the emergency services.

The situation at Southend Hospital is similar. A spokesman said: "Beds are tight due to the number of admissions over Christmas but we are managing the situation.

"There is also some staff sickness which we are covering and the wards are well resourced."

The hospital has an additional area in the day stay unit, where it will open more beds in the case of excess demands for beds.

A spokesman for pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Wellcome, manufacturers of the anti-flu remedy Relenza, said clinical studies on the drug had shown it to be "clearly effective" by cutting the time people were laid low by symptoms.

However, the Department of Health recommended the drug should not be prescribed on the NHS - tantamount to a ban, according to Dr Cormack.

He said: "The flu-like illness does a huge amount of damage to the economy. There are arguments both ways for whether Relenza should be prescribed."

The Glaxo Wellcome spokesman insisted it was each GP's individual decision whether to prescribe the drug, adding: "Evidence suggests the current situation would have been easier had it been readily available, but it is a hypothetical situation."

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