Anti-virus software has proved ineffective against the bug

NHS staff in Market Pickton are currently on full alert following the discovery of a woman infected with a mystery virus, dubbed the 'supercold', which is not killed off by antibiotics!

The bug was first spotted when Clare Timkins, a school teacher, took a day off work with violent sneezing and a terribly runny nose. “I thought I was going to die,” Timkins told Passenger’s Health Correspondent (she later corrected herself to ‘sneeze’), “It’s terrible. Penicillin didn’t do anything; the only thing which had an effect at all was drinking straight Lemsip.”

Self-appointed NHS Consultant Heptacoldologist (a newly-invented position which is, coincidentally, the highest paid in the whole hospital) Dr R. Bighouse was horrified on discovering the bug. “This is terrible!” he wailed at Passenger, “I’ve never seen anything like this; we had to process Clare’s case within five hours, it put massive strain on the system! And then we found out neither paracetamol nor plasters stopped Clare sneezing; the whole bed had to be shut down, with the curtains and everything!”

The virus, despite its silly nickname, is medically termed ‘SAVBRI’, or ‘Severe, Acute, Very Bad Respiratory Infection’, in case someone with a medical degree needs more than one adjective to realise that something’s not very nice. “It also makes a nice acronym to plaster over the press,” said Bighouse, “And it provides a nice loophole since we can’t give it a medical name when we’re not sure what’s causing it!”

Local GPs examining Miss Timkins gave a grim prognosis; a few days’ rest, and certainly no excuse for any prolonged paid sick leave from work. Meanwhile, Dr Bighouse continues to pump hospital funds into his own research budget. “Until we know what we’re dealing with here, I think it’s important that I get all the resources I need,” he said, plugging in his PlayStation and coffee blender, “The whole World is under threat! Only I can save them now.” he read from the packaging of one of the games he’d just bought.