During March 25-27 Dr. Tomas Zabransky visited Armenia with the mission to conduct the in-depth assessment of country situation as regards to the drug information/epidemiological systems and provide recommendations on how to set up and institutionalize the National Monitoring Center on Drugs and Drug Addiction (NMCDDA) improve the reliability and consistency of drug epidemiological data, strengthen the capacities of information resource persons for better data exchange, etc.


The importance of establishment and institutionalization of the National Monitoring Center on Drugs and Drug Addiction was prioritized by Dr. Ara Babloyan, Chairman of the Standing Commission on Social, Health and Environmental Affairs of the National Assembly. It was agreed that the SCAD will maintain regular contacts and support the above-mentioned commission to streamline the national drug control legislation.


During the meeting between Dr. Derenik Dumanyan, Director of the National Institute of Health, Dr. Tomas Zabransky, SCAD International Expert on Drug Information and Epidemiology, Professor Vladimir Davidyants, Director of the Information Analytical Department of the NIH, Mr. Grigori Malintsyan, SCAD Country Manager it was agreed that the MOU will be signed between the National Institute of Health and UNDP on establishment and institutionalization of the NMCDDA in Armenia. The MoU will clarify the mechanisms, frames of collaboration and outlooks of both SCAD and NIH.


The possibility of cooperation was discussed with the representatives of World Vision (WV) Armenia, which runs the GFATM in Armenia and OSI-Armenia . Taking into consideration the fact that WV and OSI are main organizations implementing harm reduction programs (needle exchange project) throughout Armenia, it was agreed that while conducting the epidemiologic surveys, research team will use the established networks of that organizations to reach the problematic drug users.


It is expected that Dr. T. Zabransky will provide his mission report during April 2008 and based on the recommendations of the report the SCAD team will start the implementation of planned activities. During the working discussions with Dr. Z. Beglaryan, Dr. T. Zabransky suggested to implement two epidemiological studies among the problematic drug users:

• cross-linking the archived personal data of drug addicts from the Narcological Clinic and linking them to the data from death registry.
• prevalence of problem drug use through biological survey on prevalence of Hepatitis C.

• Mr. TOMAS ZABRANSKY’s Country Mission Agenda (MS Word, 311 kB)
• The Country Assessment Mission Report for drug edpidemiology (acrobat version, 360 KB)