Hypertesion burden in low-income countries is on the rise, a new study has revealed.
Adults aged 30–79 years with hypertension has increased from 650 million to 1.28 billion in the last thirty years, the report says.
It however showed that the rate of hypertension is decreasing in wealthy countries.
The study which was conducted by a global network of physicians and researchers from Imperial College London and the World Health Organisation covered the period 1990–2019 used the blood pressure measurement and treatment data from over 100 million people aged 30–79 years in 184 countries.
It is the first comprehensive global analysis of trends in hypertension prevalence, detection, treatment and control and put together covers 99 per cent of the global population
It was first published in The Lancet.
Healthwise reports that the study also indicated that more than half of people (53 percent of women and 62 percent of men) with hypertension, or a total 720 million people, were not receiving the treatment that they need.
The study noted that by analysing this massive amount of data, the researchers found that there was little change in the overall rate of hypertension in the world from 1990 to 2019, but the burden has shifted from wealthy nations to low and middle-income countries.
“The rate of hypertension has decreased in wealthy countries – which now typically have some of the lowest rates – but has increased in many low- or middle-income countries.
“As a result, Canada, Peru and Switzerland had among the lowest prevalence of hypertension in the world in 2019, while some of the highest rates were seen in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Paraguay for women and Hungary, Paraguay and Poland for men.
“Although the per cent of people who have hypertension has changed little since 1990, the number of people with hypertension doubled to 1.28 billion. This was primarily due to population growth and ageing. In 2019, over one billion people with hypertension (82 percent of all people with hypertension in the world) lived in low- and middle-income countries,” the release read in part.
