With stroke killing twice as many women as breast cancer every year, neurologists today said lack of awareness is leading to an increase in number of cases.
Marking World Stroke Day today, hospitals across the city organised awareness campaigns.
"Each year more women suffer from stroke than men, and they are unaware of the primary symptoms and about the risk factors associated with it.
"Hence, women need to be educated and empowered to take charge of their health so that they not only know how to reduce their risk of suffering stroke, but can also recognise the warning signs," Rupak Barua, CEO of AMRI Hospitals, said.
Doctors at the Calcutta Medical Research Institute (CMRI) said medical research suggests that women were more likely to die from stroke than from breast cancer.
Some studies pin stroke as the third most common cause for female mortality in the world.
Dr Dipesh Kumar Mondal, president of the Stroke Foundation of Bengal, said although stroke is preventable in more than 80 per cent of cases, it is increasing alarmingly due to lack of awareness in all sections of people.
Dr Haseeb Hassan, consultant neurologist at Rabindranath Tagore Institute of Cardiac Sciences, said stroke is the third most common cause of death in the world.
"Statistics have shown that in every 53 seconds, one person suffers a stroke. The goal for acute management of patients with stroke is to stabilise them and to start treatment at the earliest, within the golden hour - 60 minutes, of the patient's arrival to minimise long term disability," he said.
Every sixth person in the world can get affected by stroke anytime in their lives, the doctors said adding, it carries a high mortality rate to the tune of up to 41 per cent in the first one month.
