Health, vaccinations and medical care in Armenia

Care

• Public facilities in Yerevan are generally sufficient for minor or straightforward problems.
• Outside Yerevan, care tends to be basic. This is the practical constraint on a trip into the mountains or the south.
• Private hospitals in Yerevan are good and can be expensive.
• Take insurance covering treatment and repatriation, and have accessible funds.

Altitude

• Mount Aragats is 4,090 m and the lakes below it about 3,000 m. Altitude sickness is a real risk there and people drive up from Yerevan at 1,000 m in an afternoon.
• Ascend slowly and turn back if you get a headache that will not shift.

Medicines

• Bring what you need. Pharmacies in Yerevan are good; in villages they are not.
• CBD is a controlled drug here and a prescription is not a defence - see the safety section. This is the most likely medicine mistake at this border.

Everyday

• Tap water in Yerevan is famously good and the city has public drinking fountains everywhere, which are a genuine Armenian institution. Elsewhere, ask locally.
• Food is excellent and hygiene standards are good in the cities.
• Winters are cold and dry, summers very hot in the Ararat plain.

Numbers

• 112 or 911 for an ambulance - 112 has been the unified number since February 2026 and 103 reaches the ambulance service directly. The FCDO notes an English-speaking operator is available on 911, which is not something you can count on in the region.