A professor of cardiology, Samuel Ike, has identified lifestyle choices, limited access to healthcare, and ignorance of critical warning signs as the primary contributors to the alarming rate of sudden deaths in Nigeria.

Mr Ike made this assertion during a public lecture titled, ‘The Menace of Sudden Death In Our Society: What Can We Do?’

The lecture, organised by the College of Medicine at Enugu State University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with the Enugu government, was held on Monday.

The lecture aimed to enlighten the public on the increasing frequency of sudden deaths, emphasising preventive measures and post-management strategies to reverse the trend.

The cardiologist noted that by personalising foreign diets over local foods, we opened the door to diseases associated with such diets. He urged Nigerians to avoid junk foods and consume more fruits and vegetables.

The cardiologist explained that sudden cardiac death was a natural death from cardiac (heart) causes resulting from an abrupt loss of consciousness within one hour of acute symptoms. He stated that the key elements involved are “prodromes, acute cardiovascular collapse, cardiac arrest, and biological deaths”.

The cardiologist said that factors such as excessive exposure to cold, over excitement, depression, nighttime seizures, excessive eating, asthma, respiratory challenges, complications in pregnancy, head injury, and abortion could lead to sudden death.

According to him, men mostly suffer from sudden deaths because many of them  do not seek medical care but suppress the symptoms with emotions, hence suffering in silence.

According to him, the autopsies conducted in the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital between 2007and 2018 showed that 13.6 per cent of the deaths were sudden deaths, and eight of 29 cases of sudden deaths reached the hospital.

He, however, called for policy and systematic interventions, adequate equipping of hospitals, the use of mass media for awareness, basic stop-and-check responsiveness, and the provision of an emergency number to help curb the menace.

Speaking on ‘Sudden Death Case Presentation and Post-Event Management’, a professor of Anatomical Pathology and Forensic, Robsam Ohayi, advised people to go for autopsy and toxicology tests to determine the cause of death.

He added that such tests would help them to know whether the cause of death was genetics or not, appealing to the Enugu government to establish a toxicology laboratory as there was none in the state..

(NAN)