The hospital at the centre of a fatal salmonella outbreak and separate sickness epidemic has dismissed accusations that its hygiene standards are as bad as some hospitals in India.

Glasgow's Victoria infirmary was closed on Friday after 218 patients and staff were struck down with the SRV virus, a 48-hour bug which causes sickness and diarrhoea.

The virus erupted at the same time as it was revealed three Victoria patients had died from an unrelated outbreak of salmonella.

Yesterday, Indian journalist Radhika Srivastava, who visited a friend in the Victoria last week, told the British press the hospital was dirty and littered with clinical waste and soiled bed linen.

Ms Srivastava, health correspondent for the Times of India, said she had seen clumps of plaster, dust and dirt under the beds and piles of soiled laundry left lying on trolleys, scenes not unfamiliar to her in Indian hospitals.

A spokesman for the South Glasgow University Hospitals Trust, which runs the Victoria, denied the claims. "Hygiene standards across the trust are of a necessarily professional standard," he said.

The Scottish health minister, Malcolm Chisholm, yesterday ordered a hygiene inspection to be made at every Scottish hospital.