As it known, the last two matches of this year of Urartu FC were postponed, as the responses of the RT-PCR tests of 5 team players for the presence of COVID-19 were positive. To find out more about the situation, as well as about the well-being of the infected players, we talked with the Deputy General Director of the club for the Medical Part, Mikhail Vartapetov.

 

- After passing the RT-PCR tests for the presence of COVID-19, it turned out that the test responses of 5 players of Urartu FC were positive, how are they now?

- All those guys who were infected feel quite normal, we are in touch with them, they, of course, were immediately isolated, just like in all previous cases. I think that by the time the championship resumes, by the time we all return from vacation, they will be in good condition and ready for training and exertion. For the entire time this season, 17 football players have suffered from a coronavirus infection in one form or another. Of these, fortunately, most of the players suffered from it in a mild or even asymptomatic form. But this doesn't give us the opportunity to relax, because it's one thing when an employee, or a brain worker, carries the infection in an asymptomatic form, and quite another when a professional athlete. There is a very important aspect of recovery and return to stress, and we have carefully studied the experience of our European colleagues, who say that the approach to returning footballers after suffering a coronavirus infection should be strictly individual, because some may suffer from cardiac or respiratory system damage, and in order to avoid these undesirable complications, it is necessary to return players to training very carefully, under medical supervision, using additional research methods. In addition, the main and most important criterion, of course, is the absence of a positive RT-PCR test. With a positive RT-PCR test, no matter how many antibodies are produced in the body, we have no moral or legal right to admit a player to training.

- And under what circumstances did you decide that you need to test the whole team again?

- When we were told that the RT-PCR test results of 1-2 players were positive, we decided to test all the players. We cannot risk the health of either the players themselves or those around us: we checked everyone. Probably, this is the weakest point in our regulations, we will refine it together with the Medical Committee of the Football Federation of Armenia, so that in the future, when a player returns to trainings, he must take the test again and, only if there is a negative answer, he can start to train. This has not been done and, as far as I know, it is not always done in other teams as well. I think we must correct this deficiency.

- The team has players with other health problems, what can you say about them?

- In general, the season turned out to be difficult due to objective and subjective reasons: war, coronavirus, quarantine. But I believe that the players played this segment with dignity, and we practically did not have any serious injuries. There were certain muscle injuries, which fit into the general statistics of such injuries, there were ligament injuries, bruises, but all this fit into the usual recovery time, and at the moment, when we let the players go for the winter break, we have practically no serious injuries. Jonele Desire, who had a micro-muscle injury, is recovering, and the rest of the injured guys have minor injuries that do not affect their abilities during trainings.

- This year, a considerable number of matches of Urartu FC were postponed, to which the games with Ararat FC and Ararat-Armenia FC were also added. This means that next season Urartu FC will have a pretty busy game schedule, which is also a serious challenge from a medical point of view.

- This is not a problem; rather, these are certain conditions that we must fulfill together with the coaching staff when planning loads, when planning the training process, but I think that risking the health of players in this regard is unacceptable. Yes, this is inconvenient for everyone, it introduces additional discomfort, and in terms of organization as well, but then we will treat with a greater degree of safety that the players will be healthy and they will not have any complications. When organizational difficulties are in the balance on the one hand, and the health of the players on the other, we choose health, since it is most important.