On January 8, during the consultation with Robert Kocharyan, the coalition touched upon the bird flu issue. According to Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan, Armenia runs a higher risk factor of contracting the bird flu now than it did a couple of months ago, in other words, before it made its way to Turkey. During the meeting, it was decided to put a ban on any food imported from Turkey.
“Armenia will run a high risk factor of contracting the disease in the months of February-March. The migration starts during that period and the birds fly from the south to north. The thing is that Armenia is like a spot for the birds to rest and then continue their journey,” said A. Margaryan. He assured, “the borders are being looked after and the territories where duck hunting was allowed are now forbidden.”
Andranik Margaryan also stated that the government had formed a supervising body way back in November of last year and that body is conducing prophylactic work at customs-putting bans on imports of eggs and bird meat to Armenia from all the countries in the world where there have been cases of bird flu.
“The Ministry of Health has obtained fluids and we keep on injecting those fluids. Right now, the situation at hand is serious, both at customs and the borders, and we are adding more control. We are also getting extra drugs, including disinfectants for the Ministry of Agriculture and medicine for the Ministry of Health,” said A. Margaryan. He added that the government had decided to provide 50 million drams for getting extra disinfectant substances and the Ministry of Health has been granted 150-200 million drams for getting new medicine.
“We are doing our best to be prepared so in case the bird flu actually does make its way to Armenia, we will be able to fight against it. Basically, we have done everything to prevent the spread of the bird flu. As of now there are no cases of bird flu in the country, but we face the danger now more than a couple of months ago,” said Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan.
L.S.