Hospital bug attacks computers

The incident happened at St Bartholomew's and The London NHS Trust, which is made up of three big London hospitals: Bart's, the Royal London and the London Chest Hospital.

The Trust says that manual back-up systems were able to minimise disruption, but the episode is causing disquiet among health professionals.

The Bart's and the London NHS Trust told More4 News that they update their antivirus software everyday so should have been protected from the variant of MyTob that has crippled their network.

However, it now appears that this might not have been the case. The trust's antivirus provider McAfee Told More4 News: "The specific variant of MyTob submitted to McAfee by the NHS earlier today has been detected since 13 January 2008 and all customers with McAfee antivirus products updated since this time would be able to detect, clean and block this threat."

St Bartholomew's and The London NHS Trust has begun a formal investigation into the incident.

Technology correspondent Benjamin Cohen reports.

Image courtesy of St Bartholomew's and The London NHS Trust.

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