A four-year-old has had her leg amputated after being struck down by a deadly form of the bug which also leads to meningitis.

Danielle Skilbeck, of Otley, has been struck down by meningococcal septicaemia.

She is in intensive care at St James's Hospital, Leeds, after the amputation which rem-oved half her leg, and faces the possibility that surgeons might have to remove the other one too.

Doctors also fear that she may never be able to feel her fingertips again because they too have been affected.

Mum Lindsay Pollard, 20, said the last three weeks had been a blur for her, spending every day at the hospital by her daughter's bedside.

Ms Pollard suspected the disease when Danielle had a rash on her arms, tummy and face.

Immediately she ran a glass over the rash and when it didn't disappear - a classic sign of meningococcal infection - she feared the worst and rang her doctors.

"My friend drove me to Westgate surgery and the doctor gave her a shot of antibiotics and they rang an ambulance immediately and she was taken to intensive care.

"The rash was then covering her body and she was drifting in and out of consciousness. She bloated to three times her size due to the fluid they put into her.

"On Sunday they amputated the bottom of her right leg and there is a good chance they will have to do the same to her other leg.

"Danielle doesn't know what is going on at the moment, she is only young, but she will know what she had and I'm not sure how she will understand."

Ms Pollard, who also has 18-month-old daughter Tia and is expecting her third child in March, lives in Hollin Gate, but soon the house they are in will be sold and they have to find somewhere else to live.

Leeds City Council has offered the family a two-bedroomed home in the area but she feels they need a three-bedroomed home.

A spokesman for Leeds City Council said: "We have every sympathy for Ms Pollard and her family and we are doing all we can to help them.