Stroke was the leading cause of death in Brazil. At the turn of the century stroke patients in Brazil had very little hope to be able to access the level of care they deserve.

This BBC video shows amazing the results of recent efforts by the local stroke community with the help and support from the World Stroke Organization and the Angels Initiative to change that.

They focused first on increasing the number of stroke ready hospitals and on supporting these hospitals to treat stroke patients according to the best available evidence. They also reached out to the ambulance services in Brazil to make sure stroke patients are diagnosed correctly at home and taken only to stroke ready hospitals. The final frontier was to find a way to educate the general population about the signs and symptoms of stroke and that they should call an ambulance when theses symptoms appear.

To help them do this the WSO agreed to support them with the implementation of the FAST Heroes campaign. The first couple of implementations have been extremely well received and even though; due to the socio-economic circumstances in some regions of Brazil, the access to computers and the internet at home is limited, the message cards, posters and other material the kids took home are doing their job of educating the Brazilian public.

The FAST heroes were even featured at a football match as can be seen in the video!

We are extremely proud that FAST Heroes can be part of the history being made in stroke care in Brazil, and even more importantly in all the Grandparents that will be saved due to this important work.