IT'S been whipping through Fair Oak's Wyvern Technology College like the plague as dozens of staff and pupils have succumbed to an outbreak of ZARS.

But thankfully, its symptoms involve nothing more than receiving a nasty sticker.

Year 9 and 10 science students have been taking part in an exercise that tries to model the way an infection spreads through a community.

At the start a small number of students were infected with ZARS and given a sticker to wear. They were also given stickers to pass on to others.

As the "infection" spread, victims had to visit the science department's public health department desk to find out wether they had succumbed to ZARS or survived.

The chances of "dying" were one in six, the same fatality rate as the Sars virus outbreak.

Science teacher Kelly Rose said: "This is an excellent and practical way to show how an infection can spread through a community."