On July 9, 2009 a dissemination meeting on “Improvement of Medical Abortion Services in Armenia” was conducted in Congress hotel, Yerevan.

The meeting was organized within the framework of the project “The Feasibility and Accessibility of Expanding Abortion Services in Armenia” by the approval of the RA Ministry of Health jointly with Gynuity Health Projects and Women’s Right Center. Fifty participants - representatives of the National Assembly, RA Ministry of Health, “Argo-Pharm” Ltd., local and international NGOs working in this field, including the “Armenian Caritas” Benevolent NGO, World Health Organization (WHO), National Center For AIDS Prevention, as well as heads, deputy heads and doctors of maternity homes, obstetrical–gynecological clinics from Yerevan and regions of Armenia participated at the dissemination meeting.

The goal of the meeting was to report the results of “The study 800 µg buccal misoprostol following 200 mg mifepristone for abortion up to 63 days gestation” carried out in three clinics in Yerevan as well as to discuss possibilities of the method’s application in Armenia.
A package of relevant materials and booklets referring to the Medical Abortion was disseminated among the participants. The meeting started with opening speeches and presentations of relevant specialists involved in the project and followed by participants’ questions and general discussion.

Dr. Tamar Tsereteli, Ph.D., Senior Consulting Associate (Gynuity Health Projects - Georgia) presented the fields of Gynuity Health Projects’ interests mentioning its programs on medical abortion, pregnancy failure and miscarriage, pre-eclampsia, postpartum hemorrhage, STIs/HIV/Infectious disease. Detailed and informative introduction of the program on medical abortion, the history of its application and implementation in different countries were also provided by Dr. Tsereteli.

The Director of Women’s Rights Center (Armenia), Dr. Susanna Vardanyan introduced the knowledge, attitude and practice of abortion among women and doctors in Armenia, the extent of doctors’ knowledge on medical abortion, provision of information about the MA to the women as well as women’s understanding on safe abortion. All these information became available after the conduct of surveys “Knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP)” of women and providers in Armenia (2007). The surveys assessed medical providers’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to abortion, as well as the knowledge and attitudes of women regarding the new method of abortion. As the conclusion the surveys highlighted the need for two main activities: the development of educational materials for women, and training for providers of medical abortion. She also presented the research work carried out with the medicaments mifepristone and misoprostol in Armenia. Mifepristone was registered in April 2007 and the misoprostol - in July 2008.

Dr. Gayane Avagyan, Ph.D., Leading Specialist of the RA Ministry of Health introduced the issue of safe abortion in Armenia and brought data on surgical abortion. She mentioned that the data on abortions rates remained high and made 2.6 abortions per woman. Dr. Avagyan also provided detailed presentation and brought statistical figures on early terms of pregnancy failure, rate of abortions in regions of Armenia and Yerevan, indicators of contraceptives, rates of mother mortality, ways of improving the situation of reproductive health of women in the country, etc. She also made a remark on the National Strategy, Programme and Actions Time Framework of Reproductive Health Improvement 2007-2015, (Yerevan) and actions to be implemented according to the National Strategy.

Dr. Tsereteli in her second presentation made the research introduction and study results carried out in Armenia (2007) in three clinics – Institute of Perinatology, Obstetrics, and Gynecology, the Center for Family Planning and Sexual Health and Department of Perinatology, Gynecology and Women’s Reproductive Health of the State Medical University with 450 pregnant women. Schemes, types and various methods of application of mifepristone and misoprostol were also presented.

As a conclusive speech to the presentations, Dr. Ruzanna Abrahamyan (Institute of Perinatology, Obstetrics and Gynecology), Dr. Astghik Zargaryan (Center of Family Planning and Sexual Health) and Dr. Anna Agajanyan (State Medical University) shared their experience from the site by providing information on the consecutive steps realized during the period of project implementation. They mentioned about the satisfactory results they came to and expressed their confidence that in the nearest future the medical abortion in Armenia would become acceptable and feasible for the population.

Further on, the participants of the meeting came up with their questions and concerns, such as where the medical abortion should be carried out and where the medicines could be acquired - in the drug stores or elsewhere, and how safe the medical abortion was.
For the participants these questions were of major concern and main discussion was focused on similar issues. They also came up with their recommendations, shared ideas on possible ways of problem solution by stating the urgency of the issue.
At the end of the meeting participants expressed their thankfulness for organizing such a meeting and hoped that the meeting would have it further outputs having actual and definite regulations, rules and instructions on carrying out medical abortion in Armenia.