ArmInfo. Two Chinese citizens are hospitalized to a separate isolation ward of the "Nork" Republican Infectious Clinical Hospital in Yerevan. Head of the epidemiology of infectious diseases department of the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the Ministry of Healthcare Liana Torosyan announced this at a January 29 press conference.
Torosyan informed that earlier these Chinese citizens were in Georgian territory, after which they stayed in Armenia for a short time, and planned to return to Georgia again. Meanwhile, at one of them, an increase in body temperature to 37 degrees was revealed, as a result of which he was not allowed to cross the border.
Due to the situation with the spread of the new type of 2019-nCoV virus in the Celestial Empire, a checkpoint was established at the Bagratashen checkpoint with specialists from the relevant departments, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As a result, it was decided that both Chinese citizens should be delivered to the "Nork" Republican Infectious Clinical Hospital in Yerevan and placed in a separate box. One of them, who had a fever, will have an X-ray of the lungs, which will make it possible to establish whether he has pneumonia or not. As the expert explained, this factor plays an important role in the diagnosis, since it is pneumonia that accompanies 2019-nCoV. If pneumonia is detected, samples for analysis can be sent to one of the foreign laboratories for testing for this virus.
Torosyan said that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), Armenia is ranked among the low-risk countries for 2019-nCoV, in connection with which there are currently no reagents in the republic that could detect a new coronavirus. <These reagents are primarily given to high-risk countries. But we hope that over the next ten days, with the assistance of WHO, we will be able to resolve this issue, and appropriate tests will also be provided to Armenia>, Torosyan said.
Earlier, Chinese authorities confirmed that a new type of coronavirus can be communicable. Given that 2019-nCoV is distributed primarily by airborne droplets, experts advise wearing protective masks, taking care of personal hygiene and washing your hands often. The number of patients with coronavirus has already exceeded 4.5 thousand people, 106 of them have died. The virus was detected not only in China, but also in the USA, South Korea, Australia, France, Germany, Thailand and Japan.