Experts explain why heart failure should be a public concern

Agencies
April 8, 2018

New Delhi, Apr 8: Heart Failure is a progressive, debilitating and potentially life-threatening condition, which is responsible for silently killing one-third of patients during hospital admission and one-fourth within 3 months of diagnosis.

On World Health Day 2018, the Cardiological Society of India (CSI) has urged the people to prioritise heart failure as a public health priority. The need of the hour is to develop a comprehensive approach to combat heart diseases in India which is on its way to becoming an epidemic in the country.

Focusing on the 'Health for all' theme of World Health Day 2018, the CSI calls for introducing programmes concentrating on screening and detection of symptoms of heart diseases amongst the rural population as such initiatives need to be scaled up across the country.

It is important that the growing incidence of heart failure should be seen as a public health challenge to further reduce mortality and morbidity due to heart failure.

'Heart failure' doesn't mean that the heart is about to stop working, but it is a potentially life-threatening condition where the heart cannot pump enough blood around the body. This, in most cases, happens because the heart muscle, which is responsible for the pumping action, weakens or stiffens over time.

According to the Non-Communicable Diseases Country Profiles released by the WHO, of the estimated 98.16 lakh deaths in India, NCDs led to nearly 6 million, which is 60 percent of the total mortality reported annually in the country.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of mortality, accounting for more than half of all deaths resulting from NCDs. The burden of CVDs is rising at a significantly high rate amongst middle-income and lower-income geographies.

According to Dr. K. Sarat Chandra, President, Cardiological Society of India, "Indians have all the reasons to be alarmed over matters of the heart. With the burden of heart failure snowballing in India and the associated high death rates, it is necessary to recognize heart failure as a public health priority in the country. The disease has socio-economic and emotional implications for the patient and his family, impacting the overall quality of life. The need of the hour is for all stakeholders to come together to develop a community-level approach to raise awareness about this condition."

The increased prevalence of heart diseases in India can be attributed mainly to lifestyle factors like tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and psychosocial stress. Heart failure is a global health problem, affecting about 26 million people worldwide. The disease burden of heart failure is around 10 million in India.

Dr Ambuj Roy, Additional Professor of Cardiology, AIIMS, New Delhi, said, "Untreated Heart Failure is a rapidly progressive and potentially fatal condition, so it is important to recognize the symptoms promptly and get treated at the earliest to prevent a rapidly downhill course. This is especially critical, since there is no way to reverse the damage already done, and treatment helps in containing further damage to the heart and other body organs. Simple medicines and in some cases implantable devices are known to benefit these patients and prolong their survival."

Data from low-income and middle-income countries like India suggested that mortality in patients with heart failure in these countries is greater than that in high-income countries. It is estimated to have cost about US$100 billion in 2012. The marked variation in mortality is attributed to low awareness, economic disparity, and ease of access to high-quality healthcare facilities, environmental and genetic factors.

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Agencies
July 21,2020

New Delhi, Jul 21: The Centre has written to all states and union territories warning against the use of N-95 masks with valved respirators by people, saying these do not prevent the virus from spreading out and are "detrimental" to the measures adopted for its containment.

The Director General of Health Services (DGHS) in the Ministry of Health, in a letter to the Principal Secretaries of health and medical education of states, said it has been observed that there is "inappropriate use" of N-95 masks, particularly those with valved respirators, by the public other than designated health workers.

The DGHS referred to the advisory on the use of homemade protective cover for face and mouth available on the website of the Ministry of Health.

"It is to bring to your knowledge that the use of valved respirator N-95 masks is detrimental to the measures adopted for preventing the spread of coronavirus as it does not prevent the virus from escaping out of the mask. In view of the above, I request you to instruct all concerned to follow the use of face/mouth cover and prevent inappropriate use of N-95 masks," DGHS Rajiv Garg said in the letter.

The government had in April issued an advisory on the use of homemade protective cover for face and mouth, asking people to wear it, particularly when they step out of their residences.

The advisory stressed such face covers must be washed and cleaned each day, as instructed, and stated that any used cotton cloth can be used to make this face cover.

The colour of the fabric does not matter but one must ensure that the fabric is washed well in boiling water for five minutes and dried well before making the face cover. Adding salt to this water is recommended, it said.

It also listed the procedures of making such homemade masks, asking to ensure it fits the face well and there are no gaps on the sides.

It urges people to wash hands thoroughly before wearing the face cover, switching to another fresh one as the face cover becomes damp or humid, and never reusing it after single use without cleaning it.

"Never share the face cover with anyone. Every member in a family should have separate face cover," the advisory stated.

India's COVID-19 case tally crossed the 11-lakh mark on Monday, while the total number of recovered patients increased to over seven lakh, according to Union health ministry data.

The death toll due to the disease rose to 27,497 with 681 fatalities reported in one day.

The ministry data updated at 8 am on Monday showed that a record single-day jump of 40,425 COVID-19 cases had taken the total number of cases to 11,18,043.

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Agencies
March 16,2020

New Delhi, Mar 16: A recent survey across 140 districts of the country shows that about 54 per cent of Indians are finding travelling to be unsafe as the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sweeps globally.

The big worry that people have is community transmission, something that researchers from around the world have approximated at 10 per cent of total infections and more common in places like Wuhan in China, South Korea, Iran and Italy.

The months of March to June have historically been high travel season for most Indians, largely due to the summer vacations in schools. "But it seems that Indians do not want to take a chance with this rather scary virus and are either cancelling or postponing their travel plans," concluded the survey by LocalCircles.

The survey gathered more than 22,000 responses from participants in tier one, two and three cities. It said 48 per cent Indians plan to cancel their international business travel for the next four months.

Besides, nearly 38 per cent of respondents said they had to pay cancellation fee to the website, travel agent, airline or railways.

"These are testing times for the entire travel and tourism industry -- airlines, hotels, travel agents as well as small tour and taxi operators. The best solution at this point is to adjust cost structures, stay flexible and work with a collective approach to minimise the period of impact to both citizens and business," said LocalCircles.

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Agencies
June 10,2020

Early treatment with the antiviral drug remdesivir has been found to reduce viral load and prevent lung disease in macaques infected with SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19, according to a study.

The findings, published in the journal Nature on Tuesday, support the early use of remdesivir treatment in patients with COVID-19 to prevent progression to pneumonia.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health in the US noted that remdesivir has broad antiviral activity and has been shown to be effective against infections with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV in animal models.

The drug is being tested in human clinical trials for the treatment of COVID-19, they said.

Researcher Emmie de Wit and colleagues investigated the effects of remdesivir treatment in rhesus macaques, a recently established model of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Two sets of six macaques were inoculated with SARS-CoV-2.

One group was treated with remdesivir 12 hours later -- close to the peak of virus reproduction in the lungs -- and these macaques received treatment every 24 hours until six days after inoculation.

In contrast to the control group, the researchers found that macaques that received remdesivir did not show signs of respiratory disease, and had reduced damage to the lungs.

Viral loads in the lower respiratory tract were also reduced in the treated animals; viral levels were around 100 times lower in the lower-respiratory tract of remdesivir-treated macaques 12 hours after the first dose, they said.

The researchers said that infectious virus could no longer be detected in the treatment group three days after initial infection, but was still detectable in four out of six control animals.

Despite this virus reduction in the lower respiratory tract, no reduction in virus shedding was observed, which indicates that clinical improvement may not equate to a lack of infectiousness, they said.

Dosing of remdesivir in the rhesus macaques is equivalent to that used in humans, the researchers noted.

They cautioned that it is difficult to directly translate the timing of treatment used in corresponding disease stages in humans, because rhesus macaques normally develop only mild disease.

However, researchers said the results indicate that remdesivir treatment of COVID-19 should be initiated as early as possible to achieve the maximum treatment effect.

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