According to the Ministry of Health, eight hospitalized people remained a critical condition on Monday. Some of them have lost the vision in their eyes, a ministry spokeswoman told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
The ministry reported mass intoxications and the first 11 deaths caused by them on September 1. Six more people died in the following days.
Most of the victims lived in Armavir, a small town 45 kilometers west of Yerevan. Law-enforcement authorities believe that they died after drinking bootleg vodka purchased from another local resident, Ashot Hovsepian. He was arrested on September 1.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee arrested two other people a few days later on suspicion of supplying Hovsepian with methanol, a highly toxic alcohol used for industrial purposes. According to the law-enforcement agency, Hovsepian diluted it with water before selling the poisonous drink to local residents.
All three arrested men deny any wrongdoing, saying that they thought they are buying and selling ethanol alcohol used in vodka production.
“Laboratory tests have determined that all Armavir victims had purchased the alcoholic beverage from the same place,” said Romela Abovian, a senior official from the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It also emerged that the [intoxication] cases in Yerevan were also caused by methanol,” Abovian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.