31% Indians live with hypertension, only 37% diagnosed in time & fewer treated, says WHO

World Health Organization report released Tuesday says nearly 4.6 mn deaths in India can be prevented by 2040 if half of its people with hypertension can control blood pressure.

Representational image | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

New Delhi: More than 13 lakh Indians in 2019 died due to cardiovascular diseases caused by high systolic pressure, the first-ever report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the global impact of hypertension has estimated. 

Released Tuesday, the report titled ‘Global report on hypertension: The race against a silent killer’ also said that about 188.3 million people aged 30-79 years — 31 percent of the country’s total population — live with the condition. Moreover, it added that while only 37 percent of Indians are diagnosed with the condition in time, even fewer — just about 30 percent — get treatment.

Nearly 4.6 million deaths in India can be prevented by 2040 if nearly half of those in the 30-79 years age group with hypertension are able to control their blood pressure, the report also noted. 

Overall, it said, approximately four out of five people are not adequately treated, but if countries can scale up coverage, 76 million deaths could be averted between 2023 and 2050.

Also, hypertension which leads to stroke, heart attacks, heart failure, kidney damage and numerous other health problems, affects one in three adults worldwide, it said. 

The number of people living with hypertension globally (blood pressure of 140/90 mmHg or higher or taking medication for hypertension) doubled between 1990 and 2019, from 650 million to 1.3 billion. Nearly half the people with hypertension globally are currently unaware of their condition, and more than three-quarters of adults with hypertension live in low-and middle-income countries, it said. 

The report was released during the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly which addresses progress of the UN’s sustainable development goals, including health goals on pandemic preparedness and response, ending tuberculosis and attaining universal health coverage.

The estimate for hypertension in India in this report, however, is less than that shown by a nationwide survey carried out by the Indian Council for Medical Research and published in The Lancet earlier this year. That survey had shown that 35.5 percent of the Indian population lives with hypertension. 

Cause and solution 

Older age and genetics can raise the risk of having high blood pressure but modifiable risk factors such as taking a high salt diet, not being physically active and drinking too much alcohol can significantly increase the risk of developing the condition. 

“Hypertension can be controlled effectively with simple, low-cost medication regimens, and yet only about one in five people with hypertension have controlled it,” WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the foreword of the report. 

“Hypertension control programmes remain neglected, under-prioritised and vastly underfunded. Strengthening hypertension control must be part of every country’s journey towards universal health coverage, based on well-functioning, equitable and resilient health systems, built on a foundation of primary health care,” he said.

The WHO report noted that while India’s national response to the hypertension crisis has been robust through the presence of a national target for hypertension, target of salt consumption and guidelines for managing hypertension, there isn’t a functioning system for generating cause-specific reliable data on mortality on a routine basis.

The report also noted that 22 percent of the Indian population had a risk of dying prematurely due to non-communicable diseases. 

(Edited by Smriti Sinha)