Serdia Pharma launches nationwide campaign for angina awareness

As a part of this global initiative, SERDIA Pharmaceuticals has launched a comprehensive programme in India: 'Angina Awareness India'.

New Delhi: SERDIA Pharmaceuticals (INDIA) Pvt Ltd, a leader in cardiology, conducted a nation-wide campaign to raise awareness on angina. The campaign urged people to not ignore symptoms of angina-like clutching pain, heaviness or tightness in the chest, pain in neck/shoulder, fatigue, backache and breathlessness and to consult a doctor at an early stage. The field force also reached out to thousands of doctors through their in-clinic awareness drive.

Angina is often the initial manifestation of coronary artery disease (CAD), the most frequent cause of death worldwide today, and has been shown to double the risk of major cardiovascular diseases. Approximately one-third of the outpatients with chronic CAD suffer from angina, while 30 per cent of patients continues to experience angina symptoms as early as one month after revascularization.

A recent study revealed that angina was under-recognized in 43.3 per cent patients with CAD who had reported angina the previous month. Among patients with frequent angina, 44 per cent were on suboptimal anti-anginal pharmacological therapy. These findings suggest that sustained efforts are needed to improve the management of angina patients.

The Working Group on Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) has launched the Angina Awareness Initiative. This initiative is supported by SERVIER in the form of an educational grant, whose contribution will be to reach out to health care professionals to improve the management of this life-threatening yet preventable condition.

As a part of this global initiative, SERDIA Pharmaceuticals has launched a comprehensive programme in India: 'Angina Awareness India'.

To help spread the word, SERDIA Pharmaceuticals has also launched an online Facebook community page - AnginaAwarenessIndia, which has already crossed over 20,000 followers. The team also conducted a video awareness campaign, Poster campaign, Community contact programs, in-clinic promotions and worked closely with leading Doctors to help spread the word. Through all channels, this awareness drive could reach more than 6 lakh patients across India.

The free mobile app - Angina under Control that has been developed by SERVIER, is also a very useful tool that helps patients to record the incidence of chest pain or discomfort and allows patients to follow the evolution of the symptoms in an objective way between the visits.

From a health economics perspective, angina represents a major burden on society. It also has a negative impact on the quality of life and leads to a 3-fold higher risk of disability, 1.5-fold higher risk of job loss, and 4-fold higher risk of depression.

"We have been a leader in the angina category in India. As a category leader, we thought it is our responsibility to create awareness for the population through Angina Awareness INDIA. That's why we are also celebrating April Angina Awareness month starting 1st April 2019", said Dr Georges Jabre, Ceo of SERDIA Pharmaceuticals.

"Currently on Google, there are over 30 lakh searches every month about the heart diseases/ angina category, which clearly indicates that people are looking out for more information. So, we co-created this 1st of its kind digital campaign along with doctors called Angina Awareness INDIA to promote angina awareness," he added.

Angina awareness being the need of the hour, SERDIA Pharmaceuticals plans to continue its efforts around the year.