A third school in Bradford has been closed because of a winter vomiting bug.

Now environmental health bosses want parents to keep poorly children indoors during half-term holidays to stop the bug spreading further.

Bradford Council has told parents to stop children attending community events for 48 hours if they have sickness or diarrhoea next week.

Bankfoot Primary, in Bolingbroke Street, has been shut for two days after more than a third of its pupils were affected by the illness, which causes stomach ache, diarrhoea and sickness.

Bankfoot decided to close after 20 children went home with vomiting on Wednesday. It is the third Bradford school closure in ten days.

Five-year-old Allerton Primary pupil Zaina Haroon of Chellow Lane, Bradford, died suddenly last week after contracting what is believed to be a vomiting bug.

A nursery building at the school in Garforth Street was closed on February 9, after an outbreak of sickness there, but the school's head teacher, Sharon Lambert, said Zaina was not a pupil in the nursery, which is in a separate building, and her death was not being linked to the sickness outbreak.

Bowling Park Primary in New Cross Street, West Bowling, was shut on Monday and Tuesday after a third of its 400 pupils, 20 teachers and 24 support staff were struck down by a vomiting bug.

The school re-opened on Wednesday. Head teacher Sue Hardcastle said there were nine new cases on Wednesday and three more on Thursday.

She said: "We are glad the numbers of new cases have dropped considerably and hope that, after half-term, we will be given the all-clear."

Bankfoot School head Juliet Wright said around 100 of the 285 pupils and youngsters at the nursery had been off sick at different times during the past fortnight. She said: "It has affected about 25 per cent of staff and 50 per cent of some of the classes.

"We spoke to environmental health officers last week and they told us we needed to deep clean the school."

Teachers, teaching assistants, governors and dinner ladies have spent the last two days doing so. Contractors are due to steam-clean carpets and surfaces and spray rooms with disinfectant next week.

Mrs Wright said the entire staff had been involved in the two-day clean-up, washing carpets and cleaning toys with disinfectant.

The school is due to re-open on February 27.

Bradford Council's director of environmental services, Richard Wixey, said: "The half-term break is a good opportunity for us to contain this bug and make a fresh start. We are urging parents to keep their children at home if they are poorly.

"If they have symptoms of sickness or diarrhoea, children should not attend community events, such as swimming, sports camps or activities in church halls, schools or mosques until they have been well for at least 48 hours.

"The bug has hit a number of our schools, some more than others, and schools are co-operating and doing all they can to help stop it spreading."