Via the Latin American Herald Tribune: Argentina Denies Manipulating Flu-Virus Figures. Excerpt:
Argentina’s new health minister, Juan Manzur, denied Saturday that officials concealed information about the number of people infected with the AH1N1 flu virus in the lead-up to recent legislative elections.
“They were working with data on patients confirmed (ill in laboratory tests),” Manzur said in justifying the drastic change in the official infection figures before and after last Sunday’s legislative elections, in which the ruling Peronist party lost its control over both houses of Congress.
On June 26, two days before the vote, the Health Ministry said 1,587 people were infected with swine flu; but on June 29, Graciela Ocaña resigned as head of that portfolio and was replaced by Manzur, who on Friday acknowledged that the number of people infected nationwide could be as high as 100,000.
But Manzur said the figures were not manipulated under his predecessor and denied that left-leaning President Cristina Fernandez had reprimanded him for providing an estimate on the number of swine-flu cases.
Only 2,800 infections have been confirmed in laboratory tests, Manzur said. He also said Saturday that the AH1N1 virus thus far has killed 55 people in Argentina, although non-governmental organizations say the death toll is closer to 90.
The president of the Argentine NGO Doctors Without Flags, Ariel Umpierrez, said there is “no doubt the government hid figures, both on the number infected and killed,” adding that Ocaña should have resigned once she knew the real number of people infected rather than waiting for the results of the elections.
