Accelerating action on hypertension is essential to stroke prevention

17 May 2023

On World Hypertension Day 2023 WSO highlights the critical importance of action on hypertension as a priority action in effective NCD and stroke prevention strategies.

On World Hypertension Day, WSO is highlighting the critical importance of action on hypertension as a priority action in effective NCD and stroke prevention strategies. While the condition is perhaps most understood as a risk factor for heart disease, hypertension poses a larger risk to our brain, accounting for around 54% of all strokes.

While individual risk will be affected by age and gender, people with blood pressure above 160/95 are five to 30 times more likely to have a stroke compared to people in a normal range (<140/90 mm Hg). Regular exercise, reduced salt intake, healthy diet and regular monitoring of blood pressure and medication are simple steps that can be taken to control hypertension. Taking action to prevent hypertension can have significant impact in reducing risk of stroke. Every 20-mmHg systolic or 10 mmHg diastolic increase in blood pressure, doubles mortality from heart disease and stroke, while a reduction of 10 mm Hg systolic and 5 mmHg diastolic stroke reduces stroke mortality by 15%.

People living in Low- and Middle-Income countries are at greater risk of hypertension and also bear the highest burden of stroke mortality. In LMICs, 1.4 billion people aged 30-79 are living with hypertension. LMICs also account for 70% of strokes and 87% of stroke related death and disability. In New Delhi today, WSO President-elect Prof Jeyaraj Pandian is participating in an event to announce significant scaling up of prevention and management of hypertension and diabetes in India, which has the largest population in the world.

Launching a Roadmap to Scale-up Hypertension and Diabetes Control the event, co-hosted by the G20, the World Health Organization and the Indian Government Ministry for Health and Family Welfare, will also launch a training programme that aims to deliver 40,000 medical officers. This programme is intended to support achievement of an ambitious government target of putting 75 million patients with hypertension and diabetes on standard treatment by 2025.

Prof Pandian’s participation in a panel discussion focused on accelerating progress towards this target through implementation of the HEARTS technical package.

WSO President-elect participates in G20 co-hosted meeting in New Delhi

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