The UAE launched a year-long "focused" campaign to tackle heart disease, by encouraging people to test themselves for risk factors.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently reported heart disease as the number one killer among high-income countries, in which the UAE is included, accounting for 16 per cent of the deaths. The UAE's mortality rate for heart disease is 22 per cent.

Humaid Al Qutami, Minister of Health, told Gulf News the campaign was important to stem a worrying trend.

"This is very important because heart disease is the number one killer in the country and the number is rising," he said.

"We have to go out and make people aware," he added. Dr Mahmoud Fikree, CEO of health policy at the ministry, said the campaign would work by encouraging people to test themselves for the heart disease risk factors.

"It is a focused campaign. People should be worried about heart disease and do something about it," he said.

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