KARACHI, Sept 28: Around 40,000 infants in Pakistan are born with congenital heart diseases (CHD) every year and 15,000 of them are critical, said child heart experts at conclusion of a three-day symposium on paediatric cardiology on Friday.

The experts also stressed the need for sharing information on new developments and improving collaboration among physicians, pediatricians and the cardiologists to help timely diagnosis of CHD in newborns.

The third day of the international symposium, organised by Pakistan Paediatric Cardiology Society (PPCS) and the National Institute of Heart Diseases (NIHD), was dedicated to live transmission of interventional and surgical procedures being performed by national and international cardiologists.

The NIHD director and patron of the symposium, Prof Khan Shah Zaman, said that over the years Pakistan had been able to acquire expertise and required facilities to treat children with CHD and there was no more need to look for treatment abroad.

During a presentation at a session held in the earlier two days, PPCS general-secretary Prof Masood Sadiq said that congenital malformations were among the leading causes of perinatal and infant deaths across the world. Based on the statistics available for CHD in newborns in developed countries and the present birth rate in Pakistan, he said, there were around 40,000 cases of CHD at birth every year in the country and out of them 15,000 were critical. Most of the infants with CHD did not usually survive beyond the first few weeks and died from oxygen deficiency, congestive cardiac failure and infections such as pneumonia and sepsis.

While in the West, CHD could be detected by ultrasounds of foetuses and newborns, in the developing world its diagnosis was a great challenge for public health. In Pakistan, lamented Prof Sadiq, the diagnosis of CHD often happened by chance and an overwhelming majority of the cases were missed. He attributed the situation to poor health-care delivery systems, poor resources, fewer tertiary-care centres and limited awareness among the people and even doctors.

Prof Sadiq also rubbished a few prevailing misconceptions that CHD was comparatively rare among Pakistani children and contributed to just a fraction of the overall infant mortality in the country. He also trashed the notions that even if infants are diagnosed with CHD, little can be done for them, and even after treatment the children would not lead healthy lives.

With regards to improving diagnoses of CHD, the child heart expert suggested screening of babies before birth, creating awareness at rural, tehsil and district headquarter levels, relevant training of paediatricians and general physicians, efficient transportation of suspected cases to the regional healthcare centers, collaboration via telemedicine and availability of CHD treatment at divisional levels.

Dr Najma Patel of National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) said that in addition to children with CHD, there was a large group of children with acquired heart diseases, including rheumatic heart diseases and infection of the heart walls. Dr Patel said that around 100,000 children in the country were either born with or developed either of these conditions every year. A significant majority of these infants were neither diagnosed in time nor provided with the required intervention and thus died in neonatal life or in infancy.

She said that about 5,000 new cases were being registered every year at NICVD including both congenital and acquired heart diseases. The first cardiology department in Pakistan was established at NICVD in the 1980s, added Dr Patel.

Other panelists, consultants and operators of percutaneous interventions and surgical cases, included Prof Kalimuddin Aziz, Prof Mehnaz Atiq, Prof Shakeel Qureshi, Prof Mazeni Alvi, Dr Asif ur Rehman, retired Lt Gen S. Afzal Ahmad and Prof Masood A. Cheema.