US Senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton collapsed on Monday while giving a speech to a local chamber of commerce near Buffalo in New York state. Colleen DiPirro, president of the Amherst Chamber of Commerce, told the local radio station WBEN-AM that Clinton had informed the crowd she was feeling unwell after contracting a stomach virus.

Clinton, 57, had just started speaking when she collapsed, DiPirro said. The senator was treated at the venue and did not require hospitalisation. "She was ill but she was not taken to any hospital," said Mike Hughes, a spokesman for Kaleida Health, which groups Buffalo's main hospitals.

According to Hughes, Clinton's staff said the senator would continue with a scheduled afternoon address on health issues at a Catholic college in Buffalo. "We asked if she would need transport and they said no," he said.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005