100,000 children are born with heart in Pakistan

 

 

 

 

KARACHI, September 27: About 100,000 children are born in Pakistan with cardiovascular diseases and die during infancy because they are not diagnosed or treated properly in time.

A panel of national and international experts addressed these issues at 9th International Symposium of the Pakistan Paediatric Cardiology Society.

“Factually about 60,000 children are born every year with congenital heart diseases and the number increases every year, but there are many cases which go undetected,” said the convener of the symposium, Prof. Najma Patel, of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases.

There are children who acquire heart diseases as rheumatic heart disease and myocarditis and over 5,000 cases of congenital and acquired heart diseases are registered every year at the institute. Paediatric cardiology and surgery facilities have been available in Pakistan since the 1980s and nowadays, there is a paediatric cardiology centre in every major city of Pakistan. “But, cases are only registered when they develop complications because people and the medical community, including family physicians, have a poor understanding of the symptoms of such ailments,” she said.

Prof. Patel suggested that giving penicillin to children when they complain of a sore throat is one way to prevent acquired and rheumatic heart disease.