The World Health Organization called for the necessity of continuing to strengthen and activate programs to combat high blood pressure to achieve universal health coverage.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom, Director-General of the Organization, said in a comment: “Programs to combat high blood pressure are still neglected and suffer from a lack of funding to a large extent,” calling for strengthening them to be part of every country’s path towards universal health coverage.
Tuesday evening, the World Health Organization issued its first global report on the devastating impact of high blood pressure and how to combat this silent killer.
The report revealed that four out of five people suffering from high blood pressure do not receive appropriate treatment, calling on countries to expand coverage and avoid 76 million deaths between 2023 and 2050.
The report indicated that high blood pressure affects one in three adults around the world, leading to strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, kidney damage and many other health problems. The number of people with high blood pressure has doubled between 1990 and 2019 from 650 million to 1.3 billion people, nearly half of whom are unaware of their condition, and more than three-quarters of affected adults live in low- and middle-income countries.
He pointed out that changing lifestyles helps lower blood pressure and prevent complications associated with it, such as following a healthy diet, quitting tobacco, practicing physical activity, and controlling high blood pressure with medications.
The report was launched during the seventy-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly, which addresses the progress made in achieving the sustainable development goals, including health goals related to epidemic preparedness and response, eliminating tuberculosis and achieving universal health coverage.
QNA