After Disagreements with Arsen Torosyans, He Submitted His Resignation and Left the Country

During the third wave of the coronavirus outbreak, when Armenia is already facing a shortage of epidemiologists, one of the nation's leading infectious disease specialists, Mher Davidyants, has emigrated. Dr. Mher Davidyants, the former director of the Nork Infectious Diseases Center, has settled in Ukraine with his family for a month and, according to information obtained by Yerevan.Today, has already signed employment contracts in Kyiv. Today, instead of saving the lives of his compatriots, he is saving the lives of Ukrainians from Covid-19.

He unexpectedly left his position as head of the Nork Infectious Diseases Center due to disagreements with notable steppe figure Arsen Torosyans before the war. In fact, Arsen Torosyans allowed—or rather encouraged—him to leave the homeland, even now, when the battle against the coronavirus is not over. This was reported by Yerevan.Today.

It is noteworthy that Mher Davidyants' advantages were not limited to his profession alone. Earlier, we reported that today, the number of epidemiologists fighting against the coronavirus in all of Armenia barely reaches 65, most of whom are already retirees. After 1998, this profession has been classified as a dying field, the faculty has been closed, and for a long time, the Medical University has not trained epidemiologists.

This is why, at the peak of the virus's spread, Health Minister Arsen Torosyans decided to send other specialists to the National Health Center for short-term retraining to manage the fight against the pandemic. Why did this not succeed? Why did we suffer such high death rates and enormous financial losses, while the fight yielded no results? The next authority will clarify this.

The fact is that Davidyants' dismissal raised serious questions, and the loss of a specialist of his caliber was of double significance. Davidyants also lectured at the Department of Infectious Diseases of the Heratsi Medical University. This means that there is no longer a training ground for specialists, as he also left the Heratsi Medical University with his resignation.

Let's remember, during the most aggressive phase of the spread of the infection, the main burden in the fight against the pandemic was placed precisely on the Nork Infectious Diseases Center, which was headed by Mher Davidyants. However, on August 20 of last year, he unexpectedly submitted his resignation. Thus, Davidyants was also pushed out of the front lines of the battle against the coronavirus due to conflicts with then-Minister Arsen Torosyans.

The media extensively discussed his removal, but Davidyants never personally commented on his decision. It's worth recalling that the ministry justified the “disagreements” as follows: “It is related to the merger of the national AIDS center, which started in 2020, with the Nork Infectious Diseases Clinic.” According to Torosyans' spokesperson, Davidyants was offered the position of general deputy, which was immediately declined.

One important consideration also comes to mind. The internal “buzz” against Davidyants in the government began after a well-known live broadcast. When Davidyants unexpectedly announced, in the presence of Prime Minister Pashinyan and Arsen Torosyans, that the first patients infected with the coronavirus were treated in February 2020, whereas, let us remind you, Nikol Pashinyan was the first to officially declare that the first infected case recorded in Armenia was on March 1. At that time, concealing infection cases was considered to be done in the interest of the constitutional YES campaign for the government, which ultimately failed.