Epidemics threaten Armenian people?

There is an unstable health and epidemiological situation in Armenia now, chief of Armenian agriculture ministry's food safety agency, leader of the One Health coalition of NGOs Grigor Grigoryan said.

According to him, the agency, instead of identifying problems and informing the public, is trying to hide outbreaks of certain diseases.

Grigoryan stressed that when keeping farmers regularly informed that there are no epidemics, the agency remits their watchfulness and actually provokes the spread of diseases.

"There are African fever pest spots in Lori, Tavush and Syunik. Therefore, the inspection agency should be more attentive to these areas and conduct regular works to prevent the death of cattle," Sputnik Armenia cited the agency's ex-chief as saying.

Grigoryan explained that peasants regularly call him and say that their chickens died. It is possible that they were affected by Newcastle disease, but, according to the expert, the inspection agency does nothing and keeps silence on this topic.

In addition, Grigoryan expressed concern about a possible outbreak of leishmaniasis parasitic disease in Yerevan, since the rubbish in the capital is almost not cleaned, due to which there are more mosquitoes spreading the disease.

"The inspection agency's head Georgi Avetisyan prefers to put up a show in the market instead of doing his job," he suggested.

There are constant reports in the media of outbreaks of African swine fever, bovine brucellosis and many other diseases, but after conducting laboratory researches the food safety agency denies the fact of epidemics. Recently, the department launched a large-scale check of meat sale points.