Congenital heart defects affect about 1 in every 100 babies born and in Fiji this equates to about 200 babies being born every year with congenital heart disease.
About 2,500 babies every year in the South Pacific have congenital heart disease.
The seven day Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week organised by the Sai Prema Foundation starts today.
Director of Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Medical Centre, Dr. Krupali Rathod Tappoo says this awareness is a time where their teams spread the word about the most common birth defect in the world.
Dr. Tappoo says congenital heart defect or disease refers to an abnormality of the heart which is present at birth and up to 20% of heart defects are gene-linked abnormalities but for the remaining 80%, the cause is largely unknown.
She says some contributing factors of the disease include smoking in pregnancy, the mothers’ diet, history of diabetes in pregnancy or being overweight as well as medications used in pregnancy.
She says there are numerous types of congenital heart defects which range from simple conditions that don’t cause symptoms to complex problems that cause severe and life-threatening symptoms.
She says the common symptoms of the disease are shortness of breath, fatigue, palpitations, cyanosis, frequent chest infections, failure to thrive and swelling in the abdomen or around the eye.
She is advising parents to see a doctor if their children may have these symptoms and children will have to be examined to determine if there is an abnormal heart sound.
Dr. Tappoo says children will also need to have an electrocardiogram which will trace the heart rate and rhythm of the child and an echocardiogram which is the scan of the heart and other tests in order to determine the exact issue.
She says currently Fiji does not have a local Pediatric Cardiac Unit and there are a few visiting teams that travel to Fiji to operate free of cost on children with congenital heart disease.
Dr. Tappoo says in April last year, the South Pacific’s first children’s heart screening centre was opened at the Sanjeevani Medical Centre in Suva in-order to screen the children for congenital heart disease which is conducted every Thursday.
She says from June 13th to 19th December last year, a total of 460 patients have been screened at this children’s heart screening centre and 40 cases of congenital heart disease were diagnosed.
Dr. Tappoo says it is about 8.6% of the children screened and shows that the detection rates in the screened children were higher than what is expected or the known local statistics.
She says over the past 3 years, the Sai Prema Foundation Fiji has also facilitated a visiting international pediatric cardiac team which has performed 71 free surgeries for children with congenital heart disease, saving the poor and under-privileged families in excess of 7 million dollars.
Dr. Tappoo says the foundation is currently building South Pacific’s first-ever children’s heart hospital which will provide free surgeries for children with congenital heart disease in Fiji and the South Pacific.
The hospital will be opened in April this year.
She says the foundation aims to build local capacity and also send local health professionals for training to its sister hospital in India so that they can establish a local team which can look after the needs of children in Fiji and the South Pacific region in the coming years.
