2011Topics and actors against the Chikungunya in the press media of Paraguay

Abstract

Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne viral disease that causes fever and severe joint pain. The first documented outbreak of chikungunya with autochthonous transmission in the Americas started in December 2013. By June 2014, many countries in the Americas, including Paraguay, developed Risk Communication plans. The aim of this study was to describe the issues and the actors in the media, evaluate the results of training journalists and analyze how the information provided by the public sector was replicated in the private media. Content analysis of publications in print media of Paraguay from June to October 2014 was conducted. The frequency of variables was calculated, including significance test, using Epi Info 7. Of 142 articles reviewed, 76 (53.5 %) corresponded to the private sector and 66 (46.5%) to the public. The 60% had as its content: the announcement of cases (18.3%), vector control measures (17.6%) and warnings (12%). Significant difference was found in the selection of the main topics depending on whether the media belonged to the public or private sector. 80.8 % of the news that had as its central focus "announcement of new cases" were for private media (p=0.004) and 87.5 % of which had as its central focus the existence of a plan contingency corresponded to the public sector (p =0.001). Also, the news that highlighted training topics were published in 83.3 % in the public media sector (p = 0.017). The 18.4% of news reproduced textually the public information and 27.6 % did so partially. The topics most frequently replicated by the media were the "Number of cases" (replicability ratio=2.6) and the "Alerts" (replicability ratio=2.3). As conclusion, providing information to the press is an effective action within a risk communication plan. Public publications that insisted with prevention messages and planning issues are not been reported verbatim in the media, but maintained an acceptable degree of replicability, which reflected reliance on official sources.