DOHA: At Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), 115 to 120 babies (six to eight per 1,000 live births) are diagnosed with congenital heart disease every year, and about 100 new patients require congenital heart surgery, according to data released by HMC yesterday.
Marking International Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Week, HMC is spreading awareness about the importance of timely intervention in preventing deaths and severe disability from the disease, which claims thousands of lives worldwide every year.
“The incidence of congenital heart disease is on the rise in Qatar,” said Dr Syed Abdul Aziz Syed Zin, Senior Consultant of Paediatric Cardiac Anaesthesia at HMC. Congenital heart disease refers to a range of birth defects that affect the normal working of the heart. It is the most common birth defect, with about one million babies with the disease born worldwide every year. Newborns with the disease are the most vulnerable to die because of factors such as immature organ systems and poor immune defences.
No obvious cause of the disease is identified in most cases, but some conditions can increase the risk for the disease, such as Down’s syndrome (a genetic disorder that affects a baby’s normal physical development and causes learning difficulties), infections (such as rubella) affecting the mother during pregnancy, and the mother having poorly controlled type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
Symptoms of the condition may include rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing, excessive sweating, extreme tiredness and fatigue, a blue tinge on the skin (cyanosis), tiredness and rapid breathing when a baby is feeding. Fetal diagnosis and timely intervention are key to reducing deaths and disability.
The Peninsula
