A school worker from Bath has spoken of her weeklong brush with swine flu.

Teaching assistant Marice Barton (corr) has now fully recovered and has returned to work at the city's Three Ways School seven days after catching the disease.

Mrs Barton had phoned her GP last week after suffering from flu-like symptoms, including fever, headache, sore throat, and loss of appetite.

The mother-of-two was diagnosed as having swine flu, and given a reference number so that her husband could collect tamiflu.

Despite the diagnosis 47-year-old Mrs Barton said the strain had been relatively mild and felt no different to normal flu.

She said: "When the GP informed me that I met the criteria and probably had swine flu, I still found it hard to believe."

"There has been so much in the newspapers and on the TV, that I thought I would somehow feel different to how I was.

"I thought to myself that maybe this isn't swine flu because I expected something different.

"I did have a temperature, I did feel low and I was confined to the house for four days, I just didn't want to go anywhere.

"Having said that, that's what you would expect from any normal flu."

Mrs Barton, of Lansdown View, has worked with children aged six to 10 at the special school at Odd Down since it opened two years ago.

She said: "I knew I would miss work for a bit but it was great to get back to the classroom after only a week.

"Both my children are grown up so I did limit contact to others to just my husband, and fortunately for him he was fine."

Three Ways is one of around a dozen schools in Bath to have been affected by the disease, with a pupil also suffering.

A spokesman for NHS Bath and North East Somerset said: "In the vast majority of cases swine flu is a mild illness and those affected make a full and quick recovery.

"Unless you have flu-like symptoms and/or are being tested for swine flu, there is no need to stop your normal everyday activities, such as going to work or school.

"The single most effective action the public can take to protect themselves and others from infection is correct respiratory and hand hygiene practice.

"These simple steps will have a major role to play in slowing the spread of any strain of influenza."

Part of the City of Bath College was closed yesterday after concern that foreign students using it may have caught swine flu.

People were turned away from the Ralph Allen building on the Avon Street campus while it was given a deep clean to stop the virus spreading further.

The college has now broken up for the summer, but the facilities are being used by students from overseas and it was a group of these people who are thought to have contracted the illness.

A spokesman said: "No other college buildings have been affected and the vast majority of the college's students have finished for the summer and are no longer on site. Staffing levels are also lower than normal during the summer holiday period."

"The City of Bath College takes its responsibilities to students and staff very seriously."

For more information on protecting yourself visit www.nhs.uk or call the swine flu information Line on 0800 1 513 513.