Fourteen children with congenital heart diseases have undergone life-saving cardiac catheterisation procedures at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali.

Cardiac catheterisation is a minimally invasive procedure in which doctors insert a thin, flexible tube called a catheter into a blood vessel and guide it to the heart. It allows doctors to examine the heart and blood vessels and, in some cases, treat heart defects without open-heart surgery.

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The team was led by paediatric cardiologist Dr. Gerard Misago.

He was supported by Dr Abdul Jabbar, a senior interventional paediatric cardiologist from Dhaka Shishu (Children’s) Hospital in Bangladesh, and Dr Richard Hubbard of the University of Maryland in the United States and the Children’s Cardiac Care Foundation.

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Acording to King Faisal Hospital, some of the children treated were as young as two days old.

Experts say that congenital heart diseases are structural problems of the heart that develop before birth.

They can affect how the heart is formed or how blood flows through it, and some require treatment soon after birth.

The latest procedures build on efforts to expand access to specialised heart care for children at the hospital. In June, 25 children received heart treatment at the hospital during a Rwanda-Israel medical mission, with most undergoing catheterisation procedures.