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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Swine flu confirmed aboard Navy ships here on R&R

Advertiser Staff

Three visiting Navy ships with sailors quarantined with flu-like symptoms will leave for San Diego today after 69 sailors and Marines were confirmed with H1N1 swine flu.

The amphibious assault ship Boxer, the dock landing ship Comstock and the cruiser Lake Champlain will be heading back to the West Coast after a seven-month deployment, the Navy said.

Thousands of sailors and Marines from the ship grouping have been on leave in the Islands since Friday.

Meanwhile, the amphibious transport dock ship New Orleans, which had been outside Pearl Harbor, will pull into port today for a visit, officials said.

All four ships in the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group have crew members quarantined with flu-like symptoms, but the Navy yesterday could not say how many were in isolation in medical wards on the ships. All 69 confirmed cases of swine flu were on the Boxer.

Cmdr. Dora Lockwood, a spokeswoman for the Navy's Third Fleet in San Diego, said the ships have stopped sending samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for H1N1 confirmation because swine flu already has been identified.

Sailors in quarantine are being treated as if they have H1N1, with the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, Lockwood said.