Study under way to assess risk of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease in Pakistan

One-fourth or 25 per cent of the South Asian Countries’ population is at an increased risk of developing Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD), experts said recently, warning that prevalence of the disease continues to rise in South Asian countries, including Pakistan where ASCVD remains the leading cause of death.

Although Pakistan is the second most populous country in South Asia, most of the data on the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases from the South Asian region is derived from India, they said, adding that as a result, the Pakistani population is highly underrepresented in global research as there is currently no comprehensive database on the native Pakistani population to assess the likelihood of developing ASCVD.

Speaking at a ceremony to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between a local pharmaceutical firm Getz Pharma to initiate research on the prevalence of ASCVD in Pakistan, speakers said ASCVD refers to a disease of the heart and blood vessels due to the accumulation of plaques, which can result in heart attacks and strokes.

Cardiac-care experts maintained that according to latest research, South Asians tend to have a higher likelihood of developing risk factors leading to ASCVD, develop cardiovascular events at an earlier age, as well as have higher mortality compared to white populations, according to multiple population-based studies.

This higher incidence of ASCVD amongst South Asians can be attributed to various biological and lifestyle-related factors. However, most of the studies conducted so far have focused on migrant South Asian populations residing in the West, causing a large gap in the data for Pakistan-specific prevalence of ASCVD.

Due to this high burden of disease, there is an urgent need for primary prevention and early screening for cardiovascular diseases in Pakistan.

“In order to address the issue of the rising health burden of cardiovascular diseases in Pakistan, Getz Pharma and Tabba Heart Institute have entered into a partnership to launch the largest, first-of-its-kind, longitudinal cohort study on Atherosclerotic Risk Assessment in Pakistani Population”, Khalid Mahmood, managing director and CEO at Getz Pharma, said while speaking at the MoU-signing ceremony at the Tabba Heart Institute in Karachi.

On behalf of the Tabba Heart Institute, Dr Bashir Hanif, executive medical director, signed the MoU to initiate this landmark study which will be executed over a 10-year period.

The study aims to recruit healthy volunteers aged 30 years or older, from selected urban and rural areas of Pakistan, who are asymptomatic and have no cardiovascular disease. This would allow for assessing the participants’ risk factor profiles and follow them up for at least 10 years to document the incidence of ASCVD.

Khalid Mahmood said that as a pharmaceutical company, research is something we all depend on to develop medicines. Hence, investing in primary healthcare is crucial, especially for a country like Pakistan which spends a miniscule percentage of its GDP on healthcare, much less than what is required for it to spend, as per WHO recommendations.

“There is a need for developing nations to invest more on primary health compared to tertiary healthcare, and prevent diseases before they become an added burden on our hospitals,” he added.

Dr Bashir Hanif commented on the widespread potential of the study: “I can’t thank Getz Pharma enough for supporting this research. This is going to be a landmark study, which no one else has done in Pakistan before, and it will help shed light on the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases amongst the younger, native Pakistani population, under 40 years of age. There is a long way to go, but we hope that we will be able to accomplish this task via dedication and teamwork.”

So far, Getz Pharma has contributed $0.5 million to this longitudinal study. In addition, Getz Pharma and Tabba Health Institute will collectively raise a further $1.5 million over the course of the 10-year initiative.

The findings from a study of this scale can provide groundbreaking results in the long-run, as it would help in informing future health policy targeting the native Pakistani population, and it would also allow early interventions for patients with risk of ASCVD from a younger age.