The fright of the bird flu has already entered the houses of a lot of people. Starting from the beginning of this new year people don’t use bird products despite the fact that media announce that there is no bird flu in Armenia. The Media representatives do their best to inform about these announcements to people. But people watch new broadcasts and see how birds are annihilated in our neighboring country Turkey.
There is much spoken and written about the actions that the international organizations and institutions take to prevent bird flu and find a solution for that. The international community spends a lot of money and a lot of countries do the same too in order to close their doors and not let the bird flu enter their countries. As a result of this kind of information a lot of people don’t eat bird products any more. Instead of this the bird product producers are confused. They say that if Armenians don’t eat bird products for a couple of months they will be in crisis and will not be able to run the companies any more. As for this field, it is one of the well-developed economical fields in Armenia and in case it collapses our economy will get much loss. The bird producers warn us that the fright of bird flu will bring much more losses than bird flu itself. We tried to find out from shops the number of bird products sold. In several big shops we were informed that the only 70-80% of bird products are sold. This is the same in restaurants too. For instance we were informed in “Our Village” restaurant that at first they had taken these products out of their menu but later decided to include them.
“We are sure that our productions fully comply with the norms of health care institutions. The providers have shown us certain certificates and we believe them”, said the cashier of the restaurant.
We were informed at “Golden Fork” restaurant that they didn’t use bird products because their clients had refused to eat. Besides that, we were informed by “Valencia” restaurant representative Vardan that they had bird products in their menu, they were sure and assured everyone that there was no bird flu in Armenia. But a lot of clients were afraid and didn’t ask for chicken.
We tried to find out what our state officials think about bird flu and whether they eat chicken or not. It turned out that most of our officials were afraid of the bird flu and didn’t use bird products. It also turned out that most of our officials, in spite of the news regarding bird flu preferred pork and used pork in their houses.
“Despite all this news going around about the bird flu, I don’t like chicken so much. After we had eaten all the bird products in our home that remained after the New Year celebrations, I told everyone in my family not to buy bird products any more. I also told them to keep my children away from these kinds of products”, says MP Mkrtich Minasyan. But the ADP leader Vazgen Manoukyan likes chicken very much. “We eat chicken, but we have started to use chicken less. Besides that I think that it is not so easy to catch bird flu. Anyway, I made myself believe so, because I like it better”. As for the businessmen’s association head Arsen Ghazaryan, he is sure that there is no bird flu in Armenia but he has thrown the five kilos of bird products that remained after the new year celebrations. As for the TV radio national committee head Alexan Harutyunyan, he says that he doesn’t like chicken but is not afraid to eat it either. As for MP Manuk Gasparyan, he says that he buys chicken and eggs from shops himself, because he knows that after boiling these products well there is no longer any danger. Mr. Gasparyan says: “Our family is big and I have eight grandchildren. We can’t keep those children without using chicken”. Mr. Sadoyan is afraid of eating bird products too, but he is not so scrupulous and eats whatever he is given to eat at home. As for Artashes Geghamyan, he took this issue to the political level and gave us a political answer: “Why does “168 Hours” care about my health and what I eat? How was it that you actually paid attention to me when I really don’t take care of myself that much. Bye”.
The minister of environmental protection, Vardan Ajvazyan is not afraid to use bird products at home. As for MP Emma Khudabeshyan, she doesn’t imagine her day without eating an egg: “I have bought eggs today and I am going to eat them. I eat egg once in two days”.
As for the health care minister Norayr Khudabeshyan, he doesn’t remember the last time he ate bird products. He is very careful in his answers and advises everyone to be careful too. As for head of the agriculture ministry virus protection department Shmidt Vardanyan, he advises everyone to eat bird products, but before eating he advises to boil the products well and then eat them.