The food safety situation is deteriorating in Armenia, the head of the Food Chain Risk Assessment Department of the Center for Ecological and Noospheric Studies of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, David Pipoyan told reporters on Thursday.

According to him, much attention is paid in the country to assessing the risks of food products that are exported, and very little attention is paid to products that are focused on domestic consumption.

Pipoyan noted that it is necessary to introduce a systematic assessment of food risks, otherwise the case of mass poisoning in Armenia’s Gyumri might not be the last.

He also said that while decisions will be made based on the preferences of various personalities, and not at a systematic, scientifically-based level, the situation will not change.

“For example, it is not clear why the anti-tobacco policy is so vehemently carried out, and there is no systematic work to implement a food risk assessment,” he said adding that this year, many cases of poisoning have been recorded, while the risks of smoking are manageable, and a person may simply not smoke where it is not supposed to.

According to him, the lack of systematic work contributes to the prosperity of street trading, since if shops and catering facilities cannot provide quality guarantees, then people naturally prefer to buy what is more affordable.

As reported earlier, 47 people have been hospitalized with symptoms of poisoning in Armenia’s second-largest city Gyumri.