Health Minister Arsen Torosyan’s Press Conference
During a press conference, Health Minister Arsen Torosyan said that the Ministry has decided to summarize some of the key actions of its fight against coronavirus in the past several months and present it to the public. Torosyan stressed that while most of the actions presented in the report are ongoing, the Government prioritizes public accountability and transparency of its actions. Torosyan noted that 1,273 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours and 349 came back positive. He went on to clarify that the low number of tests explains the low number of confirmed cases. In the past few weeks, Armenia usually registered a low number of confirmed cases on Mondays but the numbers started increasing during the week. The bed capacity allocated to COVID-19 patients remains mostly occupied but new medical centers will soon be included in the process.
While answering reporters’ questions, Torosyan noted that it is still uncertain whether a person can again get infected with COVID-19 after battling the virus once. To date, Armenia hasn’t registered such cases. But even though the world still does not have an answer to this question, we need to be cautious and remember that because someone has recovered from the virus is still not a guarantee that they won’t get infected again. The experience with seasonal acute respiratory infections has shown that they do not result in the built up of long-term immunity.
Speaking about medication and a vaccine for COVID-19, the Minister said that they are in negotiations with a number of companies and will receive sufficient quantities of medication like Afivafir and Remdesivir. There is a consensus among public health experts that we will have a vaccine, which is a good indicator, because before this consensus was reached the world was faced with uncertainties, Torosyan explained. Over 200 vaccines are currently being developed around the world and about twenty have great chances of being the final product (the one produced by Moderna company is among these twenty). Although the Government is in negotiations with several companies, these negotiations are still in their preliminary stages and some countries have already started purchasing large quantities of potential vaccines. This means that countries which are not involved in this competition will be later challenged to acquire vaccines for its populations. Besides being in negotiations with specific companies, Armenia is also working with UNICEF, the World Health Organization which can purchase large quantities of a vaccine for a hundred countries and distribute them by maintaining principles of fairness and equality. And it is important to remember that the vaccine is the only solution that will help the world to get back to a normal way of living. Torosyan also noted that developing a vaccine is a tedious process, involving multiple stages of clinical trials and a number of factors are considered when selecting the final product. Some of those key factors are whether the vaccine creates antibodies in human organisms, its side effects and to what extent it addresses the epidemic situation.
