Courtesy The Daily News

Today is World Heart Day.

Shereen Balasingham, a community medicine expert at the Directorate of Non-Communicable Diseases Division of the Health Ministry, said that the number of deaths and hospitalizations due to heart failure has increased significantly.

She stated that 52 percent of deaths in government hospitals in 2020 were due to heart attacks and that both men and women between the ages of 18 and 28 as well as between 29 to 39 years of age suffer from heart attacks.

She made these comments on Wednesday (27) while attending a press conference held at the Health Promotion Bureau.

The National Cancer Control Unit stated that how to quickly identify a heart patient should be added to the school syllabus.

Dr. Anidu Pathirana, a consultant cardiologist at the Colombo National Hospital, said that noise pollution is one of the main causes of heart disease. He also stated that if there are no laws to reduce noise pollution, new laws should be made or noise pollution should be prevented. He said that people suffer from heart attacks due to social and mental stress and the symptoms of pain in the body, difficulty in breathing and chest fatigue (wheezing) are symptoms of a heart attack.