Barking and Dagenham Council has urged residents not to panic buy after three confirmed cases of the virus in the borough.

The borough's director of public health Matthew Cole said there was no need to stockpile goods such as toilet roll and such actions would have a detrimental impact on the elderly community.

He said: 'There is no need to panic buy. It is business as usual. The schools are going out about their daily business. We are taking precautions and that is all we need to do at this point.

'My advice is that we need to look after our older people. Things like panic buying don't help when they can't get around other shops to buy things.'

He added that there are three confirmed cases of the virus, also known as Covid-19, in Barking and Dagenham but there is no evidence that it is spreading in the borough.

'All three cases acquired the virus outside of the borough so we have no evidence that we have the virus circulating in Barking and dagenham,' he said.

'If we have a suspected case that turns up at one of our surgeries we will close the surgery very quickly. This is standard practice.'