TAVR World Tour (One Team, One Heart) by The Heart Valve Centre, A Unit of HeartTeam India In Association With Kauvery Hospital

• The event was inaugurated by Dr. C. Vijayabaskar, State Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of Tamil Nadu

29th September 2020: The world today, lives in fear of the coronavirus. People and healthcare workers are overwhelmed with the stress of infection. But there is a more potent killer out there. Something no vaccine can protect you from, no mask can save you from- Heart Disease.

(L to R) Dr. A. B. Gopalamurugan, Senior Consultant – Interventional Cardiologist, Kauvery Hospital, Dr. Vaikom Mahadevan, Dr. C. Vijayabaskar, Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Tamil Nadu and Dr. Aravindan Selvaraj, Executive Director, Kauvery Hospital

People would do almost anything to avoid going to the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, that has resulted in many people ignoring the signs of a heart attack. Research shows that people are 17 times more likely to die from a heart attack than from COVID-19. 

In our endeavour to create an awareness and offer rays of hope for a cure, the world’s leading heart specialists from across the globe have come together in a show of solidarity. TAVR World Tour is the first cardiovascular health awareness campaign, comprising of 20 cardiac specialist teams from 20 different cities across the world live on one global platform (JioMeet). 

On the occasion of World Heart Day, Honourable Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Tamil Nadu, Shri. Dr. C. Vijayabaskar congratulating Dr. A. B. Gopalamurugan and Dr. Aravindan Selvaraj of Kauvery Hospital, Chennai on creating the Guinness World Records for the ‘TAVR World Tour’ for having the most viewers for a cardiovascular health awareness campaign.

The objective is to educate the masses on modern cardiac treatments such as TAVR that is an alternative to conventional open-heart surgeries thereby reducing the recovery time to just 2 days in most cases. This in turn reduces the risks involved under the current circumstances. Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement or TAVR is a less invasive treatment than conventional open heart surgery to replace a heart valve. This campaign is the largest TAVR awareness program ever conducted in the world. 

This program is an initiative by The Heart Valve Centre India, a unit of HeartTeam India- India’s first nation-wide team of cardiologists lead by Dr. A.B. Gopalamurugan. Currently operating out of Kauvery Hospital, Chennai, Dr. A.B. Gopalamurugan, Dr. Prashant Vaijyanath, Dr. Mohamed Abubacker and Dr. Karthik Raj and their team of specialists offer the most advanced Transcatheter valve therapies available in India today. The TAVR world tour was conceived and directed by Dr. A.B. Gopalamurugan and team.

Capturing the spirit of “one team, one heart,” 20 surgical teams from 20 leading medical centres around the globe, with different time zones pledged to stand together to make this record-making global awareness campaign a big success. This event marks a milestone in medical history that 20 medical teams have successfully performed the same procedure across the globe in synchrony.

The event was inaugurated by Dr. C. Vijayabaskar, State Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of Tamil Nadu, who was quoted saying, “I am proud that the first steps toward creating awareness and advancing cardiovascular treatments in India have been made in Tamil Nadu by Dr. A.B Gopalamurugan and his team and Kauvery Hospital Group.”

Dr. Alain Cribier, who is known to have invented the TAVR procedure was one of the panellists among the other renowned doctors from France, Germany, UK, Hungary, Denmark, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, China, Thailand, Australia, USA and South America.

“Kauvery hospital is proud to be a part of global initiative such as TAVR World Tour. We congratulate The Heart Valve Centre, Heart Team India and Dr. A. B. Gopalamurugan along with the team of medical experts across the world for this feat. Through this campaign, we wish to reiterate that medical emergencies such as cardiac ailments should never be ignored including in this pandemic situations and immediate help should be quickly sought”, said Dr. Aravindan Selvaraj, Executive Director, Kauvery Hospital, Chennai.

“Heart disease continues to cause numerous fatalities. Understandably, patients are apprehensive about getting treatment due to the fear of contracting Covid. However, because of this, many heart patients succumb to heart failure, from the lack of proper treatment.  We focus on procedures that minimise recovery time, thus reducing the risk of exposure. TAVR is one such treatment that involves relaxing heart valves without conventional open-heart surgery. In most cases, patients can have a heart valve replacement done in an hour and walk out the hospital two days later with no prolonged need for rehabilitation. I am proud to say our team has performed the largest number of TAVR procedures in India, as well as introduced many other treatments in our country and pioneered other first in the world treatments till date. We hope, through this TAVR World Tour campaign, we can alleviate fear and spread awareness on cutting-edge heart treatments available today.”, said Dr. A.B. Gopalamurugan – HeartTeam India, Kauvery Hospital, Chennai.

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