Abuja, Nigeria - September 17, 2025 Prof. Augustine Odili, NCS President, said this on Wednesday in Abuja at the society’s 54th Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference. It also featured the 17th Biennial Conference of the Pan African Society of Cardiology with the theme “Cost Effective Interventions for Mitigating the Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases in Africa. “If somebody needs an open-heart surgery, some of them may need as much as N12 million. In this conference, some Nigerians supported us to carry out some of these interventions in cardiology or open-heart surgery. “We are calling on the government to make it more sustainable so that we will be able to have a more heart-healthy society.” He said this would be achieved by integrating cardiovascular prevention into the primary healthcare system, controlling risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity, and adopting innovations such as telemedicine. The former President of NCS, Dr Okechukwu Ogah, said that hypertension remained the greatest killer in Nigeria, affecting more than 30 per cent of adults. “To address this, we developed guidelines with the Federal Government on task-shifting to allow health workers at the primary healthcare level to begin treatment of high blood pressure, given the shortage of doctors in the country.’’ The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the conference brought together cardiovascular experts, researchers, policymakers, industry partners and heart health advocates from across the world.