Deployment to South Pacific cancelled

[Stacey King]

Australia Network News - Wed, 6 May 2009 11:33:00 +1000
A crew member on board a US Navy warship has become ill with swine flu and 50 others are showing symptoms, leading the military to cancel a scheduled deployment to the South Pacific. The outbreak was on the USS Dubuque - a California-based amphibious transport dock ship. It had been scheduled to deploy on a four-month humanitarian mission in the Pacific to provide military and other assistance to countries in the region. A Navy spokesman says the Pacific Partnership mission will still go ahead, but possibly with another ship. USS Dubuque was to leave at the start of June and deliver medical, dental, veterinary and engineering assistance to Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands.