BIRD FLU EPIDEMIC OUTBREAK IS VERY PROBABLE CURRENTLY, SPECIALISTS CONSIDER

Noyan Tapan
Nov 6, 2007

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 6, NOYAN TAPAN. A three-day symposium under the title
"Communication and Work with Media in Emergencies Posing Danger to
Population’s Health, in Particular, during a Pandemia" started on
November 6 on the initiative of UNICEF and Japanese government. As
Sheldon Yett, a representative of UNICEF’s Armenian office, said
in his speech, the symposium is held in a period when the world is
faced with the danger of bird flu and pandemic flu. He said that in
the whole world national governments exert much efforts to work out
national response plans in order to overcome that problem.

Representatives of the RA Ministries of Health, Agriculture,
Territorial Administration, Rescue Service take part in the
symposium. According to S. Yett, the symposium’s main goal is to
provide necessary information and skills of strategies’ elaboration
to government officials and spokespersons, "so that they will be able
to efficiently work with local and international media."

According to the data provided by Elizabeth Danielian, the Head of the
World Health Organization’s Armenian Office, some epidemics of various
types of flu broke out in the 20th century, Spanish flu in 1918, Asian
flu in 1957, Hong Kong flu in 1968. "You see that the last pandemia
was recorded long ago, consequently, outbreak of a new epidemic,
that of bird flu, is very probable currently in the world. And we
should get ready to resist in just from today," E. Danielian said.