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Dubai: A worldwide health initiative, Go Red for Women, which aims to spread awareness on the single biggest killer of women today - cardiovascular disease, reaches the UAE next month.
"The UAE boasts a largely educated population of women so there should be no excuse for lack of awareness of heart disease. But the figures speak for themselves - a quarter of all deaths in the UAE are related to Cardiovascular Disease (CVD)," said Dr Nooshin Bazargani, Specialist Cardiologist at Dubai Cardiac Centre in Dubai Hospital and board member of the Emirates Cardiac Society.
A quarter of all deaths in the UAE are caused by CVD, while globally 35 per cent of women live with heart disease.
The Go Red for Women campaign is being run by foundations and cardiology societies in more than 30 countries worldwide. It reaches the UAE in April with the support of Dubai Health Authority and the Emirates Cardiac Society and will be launched at the Women's Healthcare exhibition, organised by IIR Middle East, at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre.
"CVD is indisputably the most seriously neglected health problem for women in both the developing and the developed worlds," said Bazargani.
Lack of education
The UAE is not alone in its lack of education around the disease. Limited data reveals alarming knowledge gaps throughout the world. In Singapore just eight per cent of women know that CVD poses such a threat, while in Australia among the total population awareness of women's risk drops to three per cent. Even in the US, where awareness has grown partly through the success of Go Red for Women, in 2006 only just over 20 per cent of women were aware of their biggest health risk.
"The issue of women's heart health is neglected. The persistent myth of women's invulnerability to CVD probably does much to explain the extent to which the healthcare sector ignores the grave impact of heart attacks and strokes on women. As recently as the 1980s many physicians did not even believe that women developed CVD," Bazargani said.
Visitors to Women's Healthcare will be able to pick up a Go Red for Women dress pin from the entrances and the Dubai Health Authority stand, which they can wear to raise awareness.
The entry fee is Dh10 per person per day. The exhibition takes place from April 23 to 26.
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