A military recruit graduation has been postponed after the flu bug struck almost a third of the participants.
A Defence Force spokeswoman told the Herald 30 out of the 87 recruits due to graduate at The Army Depot in Waiouru have been affected by the influenza virus.
This has forced the Recruit Regular Force 393 graduation to be postponed to July 6.
In a Facebook post, the NZ Army said: "In the past 48 hours more than one third of the recruits have been diagnosed with the virus, and we expect that number will grow over the coming days.
"The Army has made the decision that in the interests of public safety we must postpone the graduation to reduce the likelihood of our graduating soldiers spreading the virus through the community and their families and friends becoming ill."