‘What worsens heart diseases among Africans’

The Chief Medical Director of University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, Dr Chris C. Amah has said that the high level of disease, infection, poverty and ignorance in African countries like Nigeria make the burden of heart diseases more  serious among Africans. The CMD said that heart disease affects one or two per cent […]

The Chief Medical Director of University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, Dr Chris C. Amah has said that the high level of disease, infection, poverty and ignorance in African countries like Nigeria make the burden of heart diseases more  serious among Africans.

The CMD said that heart disease affects one or two per cent of the world’s population.  

Addressing newsmen on the on-going open heart surgery for 50 children and some adults with heart defects at UNTH, Dr Amah said poverty, ignorance, and disease  called PID were predominant in developing countries. 

He warned pregnant women against consumption of all sorts of drugs without prescription by a qualified doctor.

Dr Amah said most of the children booked for the open heart surgery at the hospital had congenital  heart disease. 

“That is why we preach that if a woman is pregnant, she shouldn’t swallow all kinds of medicines because even before she knows she is pregnant, any harm would have happened. The heart begins to form from the fourth, sixth week of the pregnancy when the patient wouldn’t even know that she is pregnant, especially those of them that have primary or secondary  infertility, and move from one hospital, traditional healer or church or the other, looking for solution.”