Seventeen people, including a child, are being treated in hospital after an outbreak of swine flu.
Leicester Royal Infirmary today confirmed it has closed three wards, where 14 of the patients are being treated.
Staff there are trying to contain the spread of the virus, which was responsible for the flu pandemic in 2009/10.
It killed more than 100 people in Mexico and caused concern across the world as the number of confirmed cases in other countries rose daily.
Leicester Royal Infirmary (pictured) today confirmed 14 cancer patients on three wards were being treated for the potentially killer bug
The H1N1 swine flu strain is one of the dominant flu strains this winter and the current winter flu jab offers protection against it.
Glenfield Hospital in the city is also treating three seriously ill patients with swine flu, who are receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment.
They were brought to Leicester from other parts of the country.
The affected patients at the infirmary were isolated when the discovery was made.
They have been given antiviral drugs, as well as medical staff and relatives who come into contact with them. The wards they are in have also been closed.
Dr Philip Monk, consultant in communicable disease control with Public Health England in the East Midlands, said the 14 cases of swine flu at the infirmary had been confirmed on three haemotology wards.
He said: 'On Monday, it was thought three people on the wards might have flu and because these patients have very little immunity it was decided to swab all patients.
'Fourteen were confirmed as positive.'
Cleaning has been stepped up in the affected areas and extra clinics are being held to vaccinate hospital staff.
Dr Monk said the number of cases locally and nationally had been increasing over the past three weeks.
But he said: 'It is far too early to tell how things will go.'
Dr Monk urged people to make sure they had a flu jab.
He said: 'This year's flu vaccination is a good match for H1N1, and is the best way of stopping it from spreading.
'People can be quite poorly if they get this flu, but if they have had it they won't get it again because they have built up immunity.'
Dr Monk said experts hoped the numbers infected would be far fewer than in 2009 because since then more people would have had H1N1 and built up an immunity to the infection.
Liz Collins, lead nurse for infection prevention at University Hospitals, said: 'We ask visitors who have cold and flu symptoms such as a cough, runny nose or high temperature to stay away from the hospital to avoid passing on their infections to our patients.'
The latest outbreak comes four weeks after a boy at St Gregory's Catholic Academy, in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, was diagnosed with swine flu.
A swine flu (virus is pictured) epidemic in 2009 killed more than 100 people in Mexico and caused concern across the world as the number of confirmed cases in other countries rose daily
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