Last week in this column we suggested that the UK appeared to be well placed to handle an outbreak of swine flu, and we reflected the message we were receiving from the local health authorities that there was no need to panic.

This week, we have to express our concern about the way that information over Oxfordshire’s first outbreak of swine flu was handled.

The flow of information has been less than ideal. Indeed, we would go so far as to say that health officials are in danger of obstructing their central appeal for calm with unnecessary secrecy.

As one of our website correspondents succinctly put it in a comment on the first reports of a swine flu case in Oxfordshire posted on oxfordtimes.co.uk on Saturday: “Name, location, school, please. Have I shaken hands with her parents? Does my child share the same school? Information is power; no information is just scary.”

As a newspaper, we have a clear interest in the free flow of information. We would say we have a right to know. It is, however, an interest we share with our readers. Readers often ask why we did not tell them about something earlier or why we are only giving them half a story. The answer, in so many cases, is that the information is being witheld.

In this instance, there were clearly rumours among parents at Sandhills Primary that there was a potential case of swine flu among the children.

This was eventually confirmed to the school at 2pm on Friday and subsequently in a letter to parents that afternoon (although even then the terminology used in the letter left parents in some doubt about whether swine flu was being confirmed).

It took another full 24 hours for the health authority to announce the information to the wider public — a cynic might suggest they delayed until a Saturday afternoon on a Bank Holiday weekend to minimise publicity. And then, despite parents having been informed that Sandhills Primary was the school concerned, no mention was made of this.

Of course, in these circumstances, the news filtered out very quickly — and concern among parents at Sandhills was heightened by the way that information had been handled.

We put a series of questions to Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust about its handling of information about Oxfordshire’s first case of swine flu. Most of the questions and answers have been published in full so our readers can make up their own minds.

We believe some of the answers are at best confused. In some cases, they are comically evasive. We search desperately for a reason why this should be the case and we can see none.

Lack of information is often cited as one of the reasons why the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 was such a killer. While no one would suggest that the PCT’s approach is anything like that of the authorities in 1918, we believe it has an obligation to provide the residents of Oxfordshire with timely and accurate information. We do have a right to know what is going on, not just what the PCT decides it wants to tell us.