Two more persons have been diagnosed with swine flu in Armenia, raising to five the number of such cases registered to date, a senior aide to Health Minister Harutiun Kushkian said on Wednesday.
“Two more persons infected with suspected H1N1 have been taken to [Yerevan’s] Nork infections hospital,” Shushan Hunanian told RFE/RL. “The diagnosis has been confirmed as a result of tests.”
Hunanian, who is also a member of an Armenian Health Ministry task force dealing with the virus, said one of them is an Armenian citizen who recently arrived from Saint-Petersburg, Russia, while the other is an Iranian. The latter himself went to the Nork hospital after experiencing flu symptoms, she said.
Hunanian described both individuals’ condition as “satisfactory.” “They are isolated and under doctors’ control,” she said. “All hygiene and anti-epidemic measures are being taken there. So they can’t spread the disease right now.”
One of the three other people found to be infected with swine flu last week was also an Iranian national. Armenian medical officials say he quickly recuperated from the potentially deadly disease and was discharged from the hospital at the weekend.
Armenia was until this month one of the few countries of the world seemingly unaffected by the swine flu pandemic. Kushkian on Tuesday played down the detection of the first H1N1 cases in the country, expressing confidence that Armenian medical services will contain the outbreak.