Armenia's Ministry of Health reports that a case of West Nile fever was recorded in the country yesterday.

West Nile fever is a transmissible viral disease transmitted mainly by mosquitoes.

Last September, Oleg Scherbakov, a molecular parasitology researcher at Armenia’s National Academy of Sciences, told Hetq that no human cases of West Nile fever had yet been recorded in Armenia.

Human infections attributable to West Nile Virus (WNV), first isolated in a woman in the West Nile district of Uganda in 1937, have been reported in many countries for over fifty years. 

Human infection is most often the result of bites from infected mosquitoes. Some 20% of people who become infected with WNV will develop West Nile fever. Symptoms include fever, headache, tiredness, and body aches, nausea, vomiting, occasionally with a skin rash (on the trunk of the body) and swollen lymph glands.

Scherbakov told Hetq that mosquitoes of the genus Culex, in particular Cx. Pipiens, considered the principal vectors of WNV, are quite often found in Armenia’s Ararat Plain, the Meghri region and the Araks River valley. They’re all border areas and entry points for invasive mosquito species.