CHILDREN at a South West school who took anti-viral drugs after a classmate came down with swine flu were left with nausea, insomnia and nightmares a new report has revealed.

More than half of children taking Tamiflu suffer side-effects such as nausea, insomnia and nightmares, researchers said last night.

Two studies from experts at the Health Protection Agency (HPA) showed a “high proportion” of British schoolchildren reporting problems after taking the anti-viral drug to treat swine flu.

Data was gathered from children at three schools in London and one in the South West who were given Tamiflu earlier this year after classmates became infected.

The researchers behind one study said that, although children may have attributed symptoms that were due to other illnesses to the use of Tamiflu, “this is unlikely to account for all the symptoms experienced”.

Their research, published in Eurosurveillance, looked at the side-effects reported by 11 and 12-year-old pupils in one school year in a secondary school in South West England.

The school was closed for 10 days in response to a pupil being confirmed with swine flu after returning from a holiday in Cancun, Mexico.

A total of 248 pupils took part in the study and were given Tamiflu.

Compliance  was high, with 77 per cent of children taking the full course, said the researchers.

But they added: “Fifty-one per cent experienced symptoms such as feeling sick (31.2 per cent), headaches (24.3 per cent) and stomach ache (21.1 per cent).

“Although some children were ill with flu-like symptoms, those tested did not have A(H1N1)v (swine flu) infection.”

The researchers said “likely side-effects were common” and the “burden of side-effects needs to be considered” when deciding on giving Tamiflu to children prophylactically.

The research revealed last night comes ahead of regional figures for swine flu infections in the South West which are due to be unveiled this morning.

Yesterday, it was revealed that across Britain, 110,000 new cases were reported in the last week.

According to an update released by the Government yesterday,  the figure represented a 10 per cent rise in the number of new cases estimated in the previous week.

However, according to the Health Protection Agency, which is monitoring the outbreak, the number of cases appeared to have plateaued.

A week ago, it was revealed that in the South West, one patient had died and 72 people were receiving hospital treatment in the region.