… 80% of cardiovascular deaths occur in low income countries
Several studies have shown that cardiovascular diseases are the major causes of deaths worldwide and, more importantly, in developing countries like Nigeria.
In Nigeria, the burden of non-communicable diseases primarily comes from cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, stroke, coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, cancers, sickle cell disease, among others.
Cardiovascular diseases, according to the World Health Organisation, constitute the number one cause of death globally as more people die annually from these diseases than from any other cause.
An estimated 17.5 million people died from cardiovascular diseases in 2012, representing 31% of all global deaths. Of these deaths, an estimated 7.4 million were due to coronary heart disease and 6.7 million were due to stroke, says WHO.
Worried by the development, foreign and local health care professionals are calling on the federal government to urgently address the challenge by investing heavily in cardiovascular care.
The experts, who made the call at an event organised by Reddington Healthcare Group in Lagos recently, said this was imperative in order to halt the alarming but avoidable number of deaths arising from these diseases.
One of the experts, a consultant cardiologist who is based in the USA, Dr. Ademola Abiose, said the effective way government could tackle the burden of cardiovascular diseases in Nigeria, was for it to invest in its experts through training in super specialty care and by ensuring that the needed environment and equipment were in place, which he said, were the practice in the developed countries.
According to Abiose, Nigeria lacks the state-of-the-art facility and equipment to tackle these diseases, hence, preventing Nigerian medical experts abroad from coming home to practice.
Revealing that 80% of cardiovascular deaths occur in low income countries like Nigeria, he said time had come for the country to look inward and also act fast, by addressing all identified gaps militating against efforts aimed at reducing the scourge, especially now that foreign aids were dwindling.
Charting the way forward, he noted: “There are two ways to tackle this problem in Nigeria. First, government should make it a priority by investing in cardiovascular care. We cannot continue to rely on missions to help with cardiovascular care. We have a handful of qualified Nigerian experts abroad that are committed to giving back to the country. All they are asking for is the right facility and equipment to work with.”
The second, he said, was for the government to invest in local training and prevention, stressing that the government can achieve this by allowing its institutions partner with the private hospitals in this area because some of the private hospitals in Nigeria have more sophisticated equipment than government-owned hospitals.
Corroborating the views of Abiose , Chief Executive Officer of Reddington Hospital, Dr. Adeyemi Onabowale, said the availability of technology and medical expertise in cardiac care would save lives.
According to him, when the right facilities are in place, more Nigerians with cardiovascular cases would have access to quality care and treatment without traveling abroad.
