JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS

Until last week, the Argentine press had ignored the H1N1 virus (swine flu). By Friday (July 10), millions of Argentines stayed home from work, and the flu was blamed for 82 deaths, more than anyplace else in South America, and trailing only Mexico and the United States worldwide, the Associated Press reports. The topic exploded into the headlines only the day after mid-term legislative elections, “as if the pandemic, secondary during the electoral campaign, had suddenly taken the country by assault," the AFP news agency said.

At least, that's how it was in the media. Swine flu's bleak headlines now dominate the news agenda, the Argenpress blog adds.

And rightly so. The new health minister estimates that some 100,000 Argentines are infected—"a politically incorrect number," the La Nación newspaper says—forcing it into the news. This has caused more problems for President Cristina Fernández, whose party took a beating at the polls. She called on the media to be prudent and "not to generate panic," El Mercurio reports from Chile (where 19 deaths are blamed on the flu and more than 9,000 cases are reported).

The first case in Argentina was known May 6, and dozens of deaths followed. But authorities only admitted the first fatalities on July 4, and the government declared a special holiday Friday for government workers. Banks were ordered closed. People in Buenos Aires avoided the traditional greeting: a kiss on the cheek. Still, the government didn't declare a state of emergency, the Miami Herald reports.

People in the street think information about the outbreak was hidden until after the elections had passed, Viviana García Sotelo writes for MDZ Online. The media's role in the crisis remains unclear, but as Argenpress observes, ever since H1N1 seized the Argentina news agenda, analysis of the ruling party's reversal of fortune has disappeared from the press.

For more sources, see the original Spanish version of this post.