Fabrice Muamba has called for more defibrillators to be made available at football grounds across the country, two years after the former midfielder suffered a severe cardiac arrest at White Hart Lane when his heart stopped beating for 78 minutes.

Muamba, who retired after the incident but made a full recovery, now works alongside the Professional Footballers' Association to raise awareness of cardiac health, and believes increased numbers of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) – which provide an electric shock to the body to restore a regular heartbeat – will save more lives.

The Football Association and the British Heart Foundation joined forces last year to co-fund a campaign making 900 AEDs available to football clubs outside the professional game – from steps one to six of the national league system and the Women's Super League.

The scheme, which cost approximately £4m, has seen 360 clubs sign up so far and the BHF is in the process of distributing defibrillators to these teams. However, Muamba believes more can be done to prevent fatalities. "My incident happened at the right place at the right time," said Muamba, who collapsed on the pitch in March 2012 during an FA Cup match between Tottenham and his Bolton Wanderers side.

"People were able to help me quickly but at lower league it would have been a completely different story. It's about being able to increase the emergency treatment in the lower leagues so if it happens there players can have the same treatment that I had.

"Access to defibrillators is key and being able to train everybody to do CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). That's what needs to be done. A lot of sports people die from sudden cardiac arrests so I think it's important to train kids, train everyone involved in football clubs to be able to do CPR. Access to defibrillators is very important.

"More equipment [is needed] and to teach kids about CPR. Teaching needs to be accessible to everyone, everywhere. It costs but you just need access to defibrillators."

Muamba, 25, was given 15 defibrillator shocks following his collapse on the pitch at Tottenham and ambulance trip to the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green after suffering after suffering hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy – abnormal thickening of the heart muscle.

Twelve people aged 35 and under die each week from sudden cardiac problems according to the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young, and the head of sports medicine at Liverpool, Dr Zafar Iqbal, has campaigned for 18 months in an attempt to secure legislation that would make it mandatory to have defibrillators in schools and public places across the country.

Dr Iqbal, who previously worked at Spurs where he set up a number of emergency protocols, said: "The Fabrice Muamba incident highlighted the issue but not enough was done to improve our research in this area compared to countries such as America and Norway.

"There they've got an out of hospital survival rate of more than 50% for sudden cardiac incidents but here it only ever goes up to 25%, depending on where you are in the country. AEDs should be at all sports clubs and all fitness centres. In Italy they have reduced certain types of cardiac deaths by more than 90% by doing annual screening on people who do any sport." "I'm just thankful that I had the right people at the right time, who did a great job on me," said Muamba. "I'm very thankful for that."