On August 28, 2020, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Armenia approved the revised National Safe Abortion Protocol via Order No. 2949. Several weeks later, on October 7, 2020, a country-level dissemination meeting was organized with relevant stakeholders and representatives from the Regional Training Center.

The goal of the National Safe Abortion Standards is ensure quality abortion care in line with international recommendations for pregnant persons in the Republic of Armenia. As recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Protocol should be reviewed every 5 years.

The new National Safe Abortion Protocol bans dilation and curettage, a method that can lead to unnecessary health complications and infertility, in turn promoting the use of medical abortion and vacuum aspiration. Instillation abortion during the second trimester has also been excluded from the new Protocol. Other important modification include permission to offer medical abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy (previously limited to 7 weeks), detailed pre- and post-abortion counseling guidance, and home guidelines for MVA and MA patients.

There were 39 participants in the online dissemination meeting, including Armenian medical providers from Yerevan and other regions, the Head of the Institute on Reproduction, Professor Edward Ambartsumian, the Head of the Maternal and Reproductive Health Department of the Armenian Ministry of Health, Dr. Gayane Avagyan, and RHTC team members, Rodica Comendant and Clay Cook. Participants discussed current national data on abortion in Armenia, global trends, the most recent safe abortion recommendations from FIGO, NAF, and WHO, including those specific to COVID-19, and key improvements to the Armenian Protocol.

The revision of the National Safe Abortion Protocol in Armenia has been supported by the Safe Abortion Action Fund as part of the RTC-coordinated project “Bringing the WHO recommendations on safe abortion closer to women, in countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, by supporting the development of national clinical guidelines and protocols on unwanted pregnancy.”