About 40 percent of people dying from diseases in Iran suffer from cardiovascular diseases, Iranian Health Minister Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
Dastjerdi noted that 19.5 percent of patients died of a heart attack. "This shows that very hard work should be done to combat cardiovascular disease," she said.
There are 11,700 beds for patients with cardiovascular diseases in Iran. "We must increase the number of beds for patients with cardiovascular disease by 30 percent before 2014. But if no serious work is done to combat this disease, we will not reach the desired level regardless the number of beds," Dastjerdi said.
There are 1,500 doctors of cardiology, 220 surgeons and 100 specialists in cardiovascular disease among children in Iran, Dastjerdi said.
The studies held in the country in 2004 found that 138,000 people of patients suffering from cardiovascular disease died. At the moment, 300 people suffering from cardiovascular diseases die a day," Dastjerdi said.