West Nile Virus bypasses Armenia

The anomalous heat caused the growth of West Nile Virus cases that mainly infects birds, but is known to infect humans, horses, dogs, cats, bats, chipmunks, skunks, squirrels, and domestic rabbits. The main route of human infection is through the bite of an infected mosquito.

The most number of cases were registered in Russia, where since June of 2010 there were identified 226 infected patients, of these 6 have died. Russia’s Chief Sanitary Official Gennady Onishenko said that the virus falls back and there are not new registered cases of virus.

Armenia’s Chief Sanitary Official Ara Asoyan said that “the virus isn’t typical for our region and there are not registered cases in Armenia.”

West Nile Virus is endemic in the North and Eastern Africa, and was found in the Mediterranean countries, the Middle East, India and Indonesia. In addition, it is typical for Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and some regions of Russia.