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A team of international heart surgeons and their Ghanaian counterparts on Monday performed the first ever heart surgery at the 37 Military Hospital. The operation was on a three-and-a-half-year-old hole-in-heart child. The child is convalescing at the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital, Professor Charles Yankah, a Ghanaian heart surgeon based in Germany who led the team to carry out the operation disclosed to the Times on Monday. Prof Yankah told the Times that, �the incidence of cardiovascular diseases in the country is high�, which calls for partnerships to develop cardiovascular medicine in the country. He said the country was confronted with cardiovascular diseases will surpass HIV/AIDS as the leading cause of death in African societies. He said the team was exploring the possibility of conducting another surgery before its departure. Members of the team are from Sweden, Germany, South Africa, United States of America and Nigeria. They are in the country for the Accra Heart Summit being held to create awareness of cardiovascular diseases in African society and forging capacity building in cardiovascular medicine in Africa. The international team of surgeons, as part of the heart summit, conducted workshops for about 50 Ghanaian doctors to develop their surgical and medical management strategies to manage and treat heart related diseases in the country. There are discussions on possible collaboration going on between the team and the 37Military Hospital authorities for the establishment of the second Cardiothoracic Centre at the hospital�s post-graduate college for the training of cardiovascular surgeons, cardiologists, cardiovascular physiologists and researchers. Ghana has only one cardiothoracic centre at the Korle-Bu teaching Hospital for the estimated population of 23 million. Prof Yankah, who is the Course director of the German Heart Institute in Berlin, lamented the dearth of heart related doctors in the country, saying the only cardiothoracic centre in Ghana at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital was inadequate for the population, that the proposal to have one established at the 37 Military Hospital was justified. He estimated that between two and three per cent of the population had heart related diseases, adding that the Accra Summit was aimed at developing the capacities of Ghanaian doctors and providing them with further studies for the management of heart related diseases. Prof Yankah said the ideal situation was to have trained cardiovascular physicians at all the regional hospitals to diagnose and treat people with heart related diseases who might not required surgery.