BY TEWODROS KASSA
Heart failure has become a serious and growing health problem across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, where prevalence is markedly higher than the global average. In an effort to improve this outlook, an assembly of experts from across the region was convened to discuss how to address the increasing burden of heart failure based on their real-world, professional experiences.
In Ethiopia, the public and private health centres have been advising people repeatedly to get heart diagnosis and underline the need for continued heart follow ups.
In a press release sent to The Ethiopian Herald, the paper highlighted the gaps identified by the expert group and lays out their recommendations on how to reverse current trajectories by urgently improving awareness, diagnosis, and prevention of heart failure in the region.
In connection with this year’s World Heart Day 2022 the panel of experts identifies significant gaps in awareness, diagnosis and prevention of heart failure in the Middle East and Africa
Currently, World Heart Day is a global campaign during which individuals, families, communities, and governments around the world participate in activities to take charge of their heart health and that of others.
Different studies conducted on the area calls for urgent implementation of and adherence to region-specific recommendations. Thus, more actions are needed to stop and reverse the steep rise in heart failure happening across the Middle East and Africa (MEA). This was the warning issued by a group of regional experts, who collectively outlined the primary gaps in awareness, diagnosis and prevention of heart failure in the region and agreed on a set of recommendations for policymakers to take forward.
Accordingly, heart failure is associated with significant morbidity and mortality and considerably impacts patients’ quality of life, as well as incurring a substantial economic burden, with a total estimated cost of USD 1.92 Billion. It notes that the average age a person will develop heart failure in the Middle East and Africa region is significantly lower than elsewhere: Africa (53 years), Middle East (56.4 years), North Africa (58.79 years), Asia (60 years) and Europe (70 years).
The experts point to risk factors such as diabetes, obesity, smoking and socioeconomic transition, marked by a sedentary lifestyle, lack of physical activity and high consumption of fatty foods, as the main contributors to the higher prevalence of heart failure in the region. They also agreed that, in certain countries, high prevalence of existing infectious diseases such as tuberculosis shifts the focus and resources from non-communicable diseases like heart failure.
While marking World Heart Day 2022, the experts reiterated their recommendations and stressed the ongoing, wide gaps and unmet needs in awareness, prevention, and diagnosis of heart failures in countries across the Middle East and Africa regions.
“Heart failure is a serious and growing threat to health in the Middle East and Africa, but it does not have to be this way. Policymakers across the region must act now to prioritize heart failure and associated diseases, through better training for health workers, national registries to ensure the collection of quality data and improved access to novel therapies,” said Dr. Ahmed Bennis, Professor of Cardiology, Department of Cardiology in Casablanca, Morocco.
“Whilst local guidelines are available in South Africa too many lives are being cut short in this part of the world due to gaps in how we identify and treat heart failure. This problem also places a huge economic burden on already over-stretched health systems. This paper clearly lays out what needs to be done to avert further suffering. In honor of World Heart Day, we are calling on policymakers to turn words into action,” said Dr. Eric Klug, Professor of Cardiology at the University of the Witwaterstrand in South Africa.
“For the first time, experts from across the Middle East and Africa have published a set of region-specific measures to tackle heart failure in efforts to save lives and livelihoods,” said Dr. Viraj Rajadhyaksha, AstraZeneca Area Medical Director for Middle East and Africa region.
More importantly, the experts points out that the lack of community-level awareness and a high prevalence of associated conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, compounded by poor accessibility and affordability of healthcare, as major barriers to the prevention of heart failure in the region. They urge policymakers to take the following steps to reverse current trajectories.In sum, prioritizing heart failure and its associated comorbidities alongside other infectious diseases, developing and implementing specific clinical guidelines on heart failure, creating local data registries on heart failure, and training more health workers in early identification of high-risk patients, among others are the health expert’s recommendations to stay safe from heart failure.
In addition, governments of different countries should also work jointly on improving access to advanced diagnostics and training primary care health workers to use the available technology as well as enhancing access and insurance for novel therapies are important to prevent heart failure.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2022
