The

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

was confirmed to have spread in April 2020 to the

Republic of Artsakh Artsakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh () or the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (),, is a breakaway state in the South Caucasus whose territory is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. Artsakh controls a part of the former ...

(a ''de facto'' independent republic which existed on territory ''de jure'' part of

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...

between 1991 and 2023). The first infected person was from the village of

Mirik Mirik is a small town and a Notified Area of Darjeeling district in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Mirik subdivision. The name ''Mirik'' comes from the Lepcha words ''Mir-Yok'' meaning "place burnt by fire". H ...

in the province of Kashatagh who contracted the virus from

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...

. Through May 2021, Artsakh is reported to have performed 25,040 tests, of which 2,749 were positive.

Background

On 12 January 2020, the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

(WHO) confirmed that a

novel coronavirus Novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a provisional name given to coronaviruses of medical significance before a permanent name is decided upon. Although coronaviruses are endemic in humans and infections normally mild, such as the common cold (caused by ...

was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019. The

case fatality ratio In epidemiology, case fatality rate (CFR) – or sometimes more accurately case-fatality risk – is the proportion of people diagnosed with a certain disease, who end up dying of it. Unlike a disease's mortality rate, the CFR does not take int ...

for COVID-19 was much lower than SARS of 2003, but the transmission was significantly greater, with a significant total death toll.

Timeline

March 2020

The border of the Republic of Artsakh with

was closed in order to prevent the virus from spreading to the unrecognized republic, which had its

general elections A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

on 31 March.

April 2020

On 7 April, the Ministry of Health of the Artsakh Republic reported about its first coronavirus case after one of two suspected cases tested positive for COVID-19. The person is from

. On 9 April, three people were tested, of whom two tested positive for COVID-19, though one of them is a citizen of

. The local who tested positive had registered to vote in Moshatagh (near Mirik). At this point, all known cases in Artsakh were from the province of Kashatagh. On 10 April, one of the two additional confirmed cases was from Karvachar, Shahumyan, making it the second province in Artsakh to have a confirmed case. On 15 April, in accordance with a decision taken by the Artsakh Republic's Special Commission on the Emergency Situation on 14 April, the free movement of people in the villages of Mirik, Moshatagh, Tsitsernavank, Karvachar, in the Kashatagh region, as well as the Verin Horatagh, Kochoghot and

Haterk Haterk ( hy, Հաթերք) or Hasanriz ( az, Həsənriz) is a village ''de facto'' in the Martakert Province of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, ''de jure'' in the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan, in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The ...

communities of the Martakert region were restricted to the administrative boundaries of the respective villages and regions.

May 2020

As of 24 May, there have been 33 cases in Artsakh.

2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war

Several outlets reported increased cases of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

in Nagorno-Karabakh, particularly the city of Stepanakert, where the population is forced to live in overcrowded

bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. T ...

s, due to Azerbaijan artillery and drone strikes, and difficulty in testing and contact tracing.

Statistics

References

{{COVID-19 pandemic Artsakh Artsakh 2020 in the Republic of Artsakh 2021 in the Republic of Artsakh