Egypt has been chosen by the European Society for Cardiology as one of ten countries to implement the ‘Stent for life' initiative, that aims at reducing mortality and morbidity of patients suffering from acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The countries include Bulgaria, France, Italy, Romania, Greece, Serbia, Turkey, Spain, Egypt and Portugal. “Under this initiative, the price of stents used in surgery will fall by 50 per cent to LE20,000 [$3,300], to be paid by the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with NGOs,” said Dr Mohamed Sobhi, former chairman of the Egyptian Society for Cardiology (ESC). He noted that the Ministry will implement this project free of charge in six hospitals in its first phase: Qasr Al-Aini, el-Dermerdash , the National Heart Institute, the Nasser Institute, the Alexandria School of Medicine and the Zaqaziq School of Medicine. “The project will meet international guidelines,” Dr Sobhi added during the 11th Conference for Cardiac Diseases, held recently at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, attended by 4,500 foreign, Arab and Egyptian cardiologists, under the slogan ‘Cardio Alex 2012'. The Ministry will be responsible for taking patients with ACS by ambulance to hospital, as soon as they start to feel the symptoms of this illness. The symptoms include discomfort in the middle of the chest: heaviness, burning, tightness, constriction, a squeezing sensation or the feeling of a heavy weight pressing on the chest. “The pain may also spread to the throat or neck, to the jaw, to the shoulders, to the left or right arm or both [going down the inside of the arms] and sometimes to the back or stomach,” Dr Sobhi explained. He added that, in advanced countries like France and Italy, about 30 per cent of patients with ACS get taken to hospital; in Egypt, the figure is only 8 per cent. “By increasing awareness, this figure could rise to 12 per cent within one year,” Dr Sobhi stressed. The ESC will launch a media campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of ACS and the need for anyone experiencing its symptoms to go straight to a hospital that is equipped with the necessary devices and where there are trained specialists. “Intervention should be started within 90 minutes of the symptoms being noticed, to prevent the heart muscle being adversely affected,“ he warned. Meanwhile, Dr Mahmoud Hassanein, professor of cardiology at Alexandria University, noted that hypertension is a common complaint in Egypt; 26 per cent of Egyptian adults suffer from high blood pressure. About 80 per cent respond to drug treatment. For the others, there is a new technique for decreasing their hypertension.
