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International Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Day 2024
February 14 isn't just Valentine's Day!
February 14 is International Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day. As the name suggests, the aim of this international day is to raise public awareness of congenital heart disease. In the spotlight.
What is Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Day?
Celebrated every year on the same date – February 14, which isn’t just for lovers – this special day in the calendar aims to inform and raise awareness among as many people as possible about congenital heart disease.
These congenital heart anomalies, which affect 8 out of every 1,000 births worldwide, are malformations present from birth and result from abnormalities in utero.
These congenital pathologies are mainly classified as ” cyanogenic ” and ” non-cyanogenic “:
- Communication anomalies between cardiac compartments,
- Persistent ductus arteriosus,
- Narrowings – also known as “stenoses”,
- Tetralogy of Fallot,
- Transposition of large vessels,…
What actions are carried out by La Chaîne de l’Espoir?
Since it was founded in 1994, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has been treating various diseases affecting children in the countries where it operates. These include, of course, congenital heart disease.
In practice, when such a pathology is identified, different situations may arise:
- Sick children are operated on in their country of origin during our surgical missions,
- With our financial support, the sick child is operated on in his or her home country by local teams trained by our volunteer doctors,
- Sick children cannot be operated on in their country of origin, due to the lack of a suitable health structure and/or sufficiently trained medical staff: they are then transferred to France (metropolitan France or Reunion Island) or Senegal, where children from the West African sub-region are operated on.
In addition to these medical services, La Chaîne de l’Espoir is working toempower local medical and paramedical teams. The aim is for these teams to be able to carry out surgical operations on their own, particularly in the case of congenital heart disease.
This strategy, which combines child transfers and medical training, has already borne fruit. Our association has enabled the first open-heart surgery in medical history in Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso.
