Ireland is to take two initiatives to promote cardiac health throughout the European Union during its presidency of the EU next year, the Department of Health has announced.
A European conference on heart health - to be held in Cork in February 2004 - will build on Ireland's experience of heart disease to address the issue across the community.
Ireland currently has the highest rate of death from cardiovascular disease among the 15 EU states.
However, the Department of Health says this will change when new countries join the union. It believes the accession countries will benefit from Ireland's experience of dealing with cardiovascular illnesses.
Health officials claim significant gains have been made in preventing heart disease here with the help of a €54 million investment programme over the past four years. At one stage, Ireland's death rate from cardiovascular disease was twice the European average.
In a second initiative, heart experts will meet in Dublin next May to agree on standards for information to be used in an EU-wide database on cardiovascular disease.