February is Heart Health Awareness Month and Privateers Alliance is on a mission to help educate and eradicate Cardiovascular Disease, worldwide!

Did you know:

• Cardiovascular Diseases are the number 1 cause of death globally: more people die annually from CVDs than from any other cause?
• An estimated 17.7 million people died from CVDs in 2015, representing 31% of all global deaths. Of these deaths, an estimated 7.4 million were due to coronary heart disease and 6.7 million were due to stroke 
• Over three quarters of CVD deaths take place in low- and middle-income countries.
• Out of the 17 million premature deaths (under the age of 70) due to noncommunicable diseases in 2015, 82% are in low- and middle-income countries, and 37% are caused by CVDs.
• Most cardiovascular diseases can be prevented by addressing behavioural risk factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy diet and obesity, physical inactivity and harmful use of alcohol using population-wide strategies.
• People with cardiovascular disease or who are at high cardiovascular risk (due to the presence of one or more risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia or already established disease) need early detection and management using counselling and medicines, as appropriate.

Statistics Courtesy of WHO