Even as Gujarat has been witnessing an increasing number of deaths due to heart attacks, a panel of experts in Ahmedabad on Saturday said that the instances have nothing to do with Covid-19 or vaccination.
They urged people to modify their lifestyle and not to panic.
Admitting that there has been a marginal rise in the number of patients with heart attacks, they said it is due to global trends.
They reiterated that it has nothing to do with Covid-19 and vaccines. According to them, clotting of blood was reported in the initial few weeks of a person getting infected with Covid-19 and not on a long term basis.
The issue once again grabbed headlines when more than 10 persons, especially youngsters, died, reportedly due to heart attack or severe cardiac arrests, during the recently concluded Navratri festival.
UP Governor and former Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel, while raising concern about it, had suggested that the reasons of the deaths be studied. Thereafter, when questioned, Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya had said that persons who suffered severe Covid-19 should not do strenuous work.
Data given by UN Mehta Cardiology and Research Institute, Asia’s largest cardiac institute, and three private hospitals indicate that post-Covid there has been only one per cent rise in the number of cases vis-à-vis pre-Covid times. This, according to the doctors, is insignificant.
Dr Chirag Doshi of the UN Mehta Cardiology and Research Institute said that before Covid they got around 8 to 11 percent of youngsters out of the total number of heart attack patients and post-Covid till 2023, it has been 12 per cent.
While considering youngsters as below 40, Dr Milan Chag of Marengo CIMS Hospital said that pre-Covid in their hospital was 9.6 per cent and post-Covid it is 9.7 per cent.
Similarly, in Zydus Hospital, it was 11 per cent pre- Covid and post- Covid it is 11.2 per cent. In Sterling Hospital, it was 11 per cent pre- Covid and post- Covid it is 12 per cent.
While advising to lead a healthy lifestyle and make exercise part of daily routine, the doctors said that there is a need to differentiate between heart attacks and sudden cardiac arrests. They said that in the case of the latter, if the CPR is not given then the person dies within three to four minutes.
Dr Chag said that heart attack is a circulation problem where there is sudden blockage of the artery and can lead to sudden cardiac death in 3 to 4 percent of the patients. In most of the cases, patients have time to go to the hospital and get treated.
Cardiac arrest, according to him, is an electrical problem where the heart's rhythm becomes irregular, it is very rapid and contraction or beating of the heart is ineffective and the blood supply to the brain is affected and the person becomes unconscious. The person can die in three to four minutes unless cardiac massage or a CPR is given, he added.
Explaining the symptoms of a heart attack, the doctors emphasized that over diagnosis is better than ignoring the symptoms. They said that many times people do not want to accept the fact that it could be a heart attack and feel that it is just acidity or gas.
