Malaria eradicated from Armenia

By 2010 malaria will not exist in Armenia. This was informed to Arminfo by Lilit Avetisyan, head of the agency of infections and contagious diseases. According to her, Armenia is the first country in the world that has announced it will completely eradicate malaria. She adds that Armenian experts are studying the dynamics of the disease over the last 105 years, as malaria is a disease that is broken up into 100-year time frames. She promises positive results from their studies.

The biggest outbreak of malaria in Armenia was in the 1920s, when 100,000 persons died. As Avetisyan informed, the disease was finally eradicated in 1983, but again appeared in 2005, with 7 reporting the illness.

In 2006 the Armenian government decided to include the eradication of malaria in its program, with the goal of eradication in the next 3-4 years.

We note that worldwide 300-500 million persons are infected yearly with malaria, with 1.3 million perishing.