Seasonal flu hits Armenia hard

Schools are closed and medication is expensive

by Armen Hakobyan

Published: Saturday December 12, 2009

Minister of Health Harutyun Kushkyan. Photolure

Yerevan - According to Armenia's Ministry of Health, 54 cases of the A/H1N1 flu have been registered in the Republic of Armenia as of December 10. However, health officials have announced that they are more concerned with the spread of the common or seasonal flu.

Ara Asoyan, Armenia's chief infectious diseases specialist, told the Armenian Reporter that the situation in Armenia is still tenuous. "I would say that the situation of the virus in the republic is rather serious. As you know, it is an airborne disease and has the tendency to become a serious epidemic," Dr. Asoyan said.

Earlier, Dr. Asoyan had announced that all nursery schools, kindergartens, and elementary schools throughout the republic would be immediately closed. Armenia's Minister of Education Armen Ashotyan on December 7 signed a ministerial order that called for the immediate closure of all schools and educational institutions from December 8 to 19.

This is a preventative measure that is being taken by the government. On December 9, in a statement before the National Assembly, Armenia's Health Minister Harutyun Kushkyan said that between November 9 and December 9, the ministry had registered 31,467 contagious cases of upper respiratory illness in the country. These are reported cases only. Looking at official figures only, fully one percent of the population of Armenia has been infected.

Officials from the Health Ministry have confirmed that since November 20, three people have died from complications of the common flu. The Health Ministry stresses that those deaths have no connection with swine flu.

When in mid-November it was announced that one person had died of H1N1 flu, the Health Ministry said that they couldn't be sure that it was H1N1 and they needed more time to make that confirmation. However, with regard to the three deaths, the ministry immediately came to the conclusion that they resulted from complications of the common flu and not H1N1. According to some sources, in the last 10-15 days, three inhabitants of the city of Sevan have died in Yerevan's hospitals and all three had early symptoms of bronchitis (the three deceased are not related and had no previous contact). The ministry has made no comment about these deaths.

The concerns of the population with regard to the flu epidemic have now been aggravated by the sudden increase in the price of the drugs being prescribed by physicians. One box of the medication Tamiflu has now reached 15-17 thousand AMD ($40-45), up from 8,000; a regular mask, which used to cost 40-50 AMD (just over a dime) now costs 250-300. Even the prices of home remedies like garlic and lemon have gone up.