An estimated 3,000 children withCongenital Heart Disease CHD are born every year in Sri Lanka – figures are based on the incidence of CHD and the number of live births in Sri Lanka which match the number of patients that we see every year at Lady Ridgeway Hospital”, President of the Sri Lanka Heart Association and Consultant Paediatrican Lady Ridgeway Hospital, Dr Duminda Samarasinghe told the Sunday Observer. “
A heart disease that exists from birth is called a congenital heart disease.
They are also called structural heart disease. It may be a hole in the heart, a narrow valve or a blood vessel or a combination of lesions leading to a more complex disease,” he said.
“ These defects could be broadly categorised into cyanotic (heart diseases that cause bluish discolouration of the baby) and acyanotic (those that do not cause bluish discolouration).”
Symptoms that a baby has a heart lesion: “When he is not gaining weight, sweats a lot, becomes breathless and fatigued easily, has a high heart rate or if there is bluish discolouration of hands, feet and tongue you can suspect a heart lesion.
In addition to these symptoms if a child gets recurrent respiratory infections, such as pneumonia, you can suspect a congenital heart disease.
If the heart sounds are abnormal when a doctor listens to the heart using a stethoscope he can suspect a heart disease.
In all these situations the child will be subjected to an Echocardiogram by a paediatric cardiologist,” he said.
Giving hope to mothers he added that compared to a few decades ago the survival chances and quality of life of children with CHD had improved vastly.
“Today, we do around 700 catheter based interventions and 900 cardiac surgeries per year at LRH.
But to treat all children with heart disease in an appropriate manner, we need to target 2,000 surgeries per year in Sri Lanka’, he said.
To achieve this target, he said, The Little Hearts project had been initiated at the LRH.
He appealed to the public to support this project to assure parents with children afflicted by CHD to lead normal productive lives.
More information on this worthwhile project can be obtained from www.littlehearts.lk or by calling 0716441122 he said.
Colour Code for food a welcome step
The Minister of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, Dr Rajitha Senaratne’s announcement regarding the introduction of a colour coding system for sugar, salt and fat contained in solid and semi solid items, has been welcomed by health officials concerned by the rise of Non Communicable Diseases ( NCD) across the country.
“Many leading manufacturers of well known brands of drinks and food have already begun complying with these regulations .
It is the small scale manufacturers who are yet unable to comply due to financial constraints”, Secretary, Food Inspectors Union of Sri Lanka B M Balasooriya told the Sunday Observer.
He said 500 such small scale manufacturers had been identified.
“We have given them a time frame for January 1 2020. Since they have many problems our Union has offered them free advice on how to achieve this goal,” Balasooriya said.
Semi solid food includes yoghurt, jelly, jams chutney, pickles, etc. Colours similar to a traffic light system indicate the level of sugar and salt they contain: Red very high, Orange – in between and Green - low sugar and salt content.
The regulation under section 32 of the Food Act, No 26 of 1980 in consultation with the Food Advisory Committee was published in the Extraordinary Gazette on April 17.
According to the Gazette “no person shall package, sell, expose for sale, or advertise any solid or semi-solid food which contains specified amounts of sugar, salt and fat unless such food is labelled in the manner specified in these regulations.”