JEDDAH — In collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the Saudi Heart Failure Group, the Saudi Pharmaceutical Distribution Co. Ltd., a Novartis company, organized a cardiac conference targeting heart patients in Jeddah.

Held under the auspices of Dr. Tarif Al-Aamy, undersecretary for therapeutic affairs at the Ministry of Health, the conference was attended by physicians, cardiologists and other healthcare professionals from all over Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Waleed Al-Habeeb, President of Saudi Heart Failure Group, shed light on the heart diseases, its upward rates, and the risks of mortality among the patients, which exceed the mortality rates of cancer.

Al-Habeeb stressed the significant role that can be played by globally unifying the developmental efforts in order to identify the causes and management of heart failure and understand the most effective ways of treating it.

“This conference is part of those efforts, as it acts as a platform embracing right information about heart failure, and a valuable initiative in which all the efforts of the committed companies and other entities are mutually exerted to help improve the patients’ quality of life and to innovate unbeaten medical solutions, in line with the objectives of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and the National Transition Program 2020,” Al-Habeeb added.

A diversity of topics relevant to heart failure were covered during the two-day conference, which included papers and lectures delivered by physicians and cardiologists from inside the Kingdom and abroad. The issues touched many significant areas, including but not limited to, the management of cardiac failure, ways to care for patients beyond therapeutic norms, epidemiology and its direct link to the disease, relationship between Sympathetic Nervous System and the heart failure, quality of devises used in heart failure treatment.

The conference also featured some workshops introduced by a group of cardiologists together with Dr. Mohammed Habab, Dr. Shukri Al-Saif, and Dr. Al-Habeeb. The workshops focused on strategies that should be adopted to provide heart failure patients with high level of medical treatment, the significance of launching initiatives on the disease’s remedy, the latest innovative solutions in the field, the need to form a multidisciplinary team to handle the heart failure issues, challenges in the management of patients’ over-medication, efforts to boost patient’s therapeutic journey from the moment he enters the hospital until discharge, and the physiology of the disease from the latest global trends in this regard, to successful clinical practices.

Novartis has produced a new medicine that is central to treating heart failure. The medicine proved remarkably effective in motivating the heart muscles, stimulating the Sympathetic Nervous System, and improving the body’s natural defenses against heart failure. — SG