During Thursday’s session of government, the Minister of Health, Anahit Avanesyan, urged citizens to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. She said that getting vaccinated is the only way to prevent tragic deaths.
“All of the vaccinations that are available in Armenia prevent severe and critical progressions of the virus. The risk of any mild or severe side effects from the vaccine is almost zero, compared to the cases of infection with COVID and the resulting severe health effects and deaths,” Avanesyan said, urging her colleagues in government to get vaccinated and show by their example that this is an important issue. “I was vaccinated yesterday, and I am feeling well.”
The acting Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, added that it is important for them to reach an agreement that everyone sitting in the hall at the session should get vaccinated in the coming weeks.
“We have AstraZeneca and Sputnik V. In the coming weeks, we will also receive vaccines from China. If any vaccine presents a threat to our citizens’ health and lives, the government will simply not accept that vaccine. We greatly respect all vaccine manufacturers. Our deputy prime minister and minister were vaccinated with AstraZeneca, and as we can see, they are here, and nothing out of the ordinary has happened to them. I say this because there is a lot of speculation in the media regarding this, and I think it is important for us to use our full potential. It is not surprising that there is a campaign in Armenia because there have been movements against vaccinations in Armenia in recent years. It is hard to tell what their purpose is. At the moment, only 2,690 people have been vaccinated in Armenia, which is an embarrassingly low number. The number of vaccinated citizens in the world today is a sign of the quality of the country in all aspects- economic, political, and civil.” He also said that soon, getting vaccinated against the coronavirus will be mandatory for any trips around the world.
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Nikol Pashinyan assured that there is an agreement in place with Russia that Armenia will acquire 1 million doses of the vaccine. “We are also negotiating with our other colleagues, from whom we will obtain large numbers of vaccines. Imagine that we bring all those vaccines, spend a lot of money from the state budget, and in the end, we find out that people are not getting vaccinated based on principles. It will turn out to be a very bad thing with a double and triple negative affect. So, we should not pay attention to speculations about vaccines.”
Regarding news that Armenia brought coronavirus vaccines that have an expiration date for May, Nikol Pashinyan said that everything has its expiration date. “Citizens will only be vaccinated with valid vaccines.”
Pashinyan said that businesses must prioritize getting vaccinated because if Armenia does not experience huge progress in the number of administered vaccines, the tourism industry can face major problems this year. “It is very important for all voices that have started a campaign against vaccines to be drowned out.”
Nelly Babayan
