four people die each day in the Kingdom from Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS), frequently referred to as the sudden demise of persons in otherwise perfectly good health, according to a study described as the “first of its kind in the Arab world.” The statistic comes from research conducted by King Saud University where a Chair has been set up to look into the phenomenon. “Twenty-four individuals die suddenly and without warning in the Kingdom every day, a rate which is a source of concern,” said Ahmed Al-Taweel, supervisor of the university's SDS Research Chair which carried out the study with the Pandemics and Public Health Chair. The Chair's head of field research, Abdul Aziz Bin Saeed said it was the first such study in the Arab World. “The method researchers have used is the first of its kind in the world and researchers in the Third World can also apply it,” Bin Saeed said. Sudden Death Syndrome is an umbrella term sometimes used to include Sudden Cardiac Death which describes heart attacks in otherwise healthy persons of a young age and similarly healthy persons who die unexpectedly in their sleep. In some countries like the UK such deaths are officially registered as death by “natural causes”. UK statistics show that 12 persons die per week from SDS.
