A major urban health campaign on hypertension has been announced by the Novartis Foundation at a health conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
The campaign to be called “Better Hearts, Better Cities” is to focus on tackling the causes of high blood pressure and getting populations in low- and middle-income countries especially in Africa to be aware of the dangers of this non communicable disease.
The head of the Novartis Foundation, Ann Aerts in announcing this initiative said the fast pace at which hypertension is killing people calls for urgent and innovative solutions.
High blood pressure with its extremely high levels of cardiovascular disease now accounts for some 1.6 million deaths worldwide annually and 80 per cent of these deaths happen in low-and middle-income countries including Africa.
According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), there are more deaths from cardiovascular diseases in sub-Saharan Africa than from HIV/Aids or malaria.
As at 2000 over one billion of the world’s population had hypertension but that figure could go up by 40 per cent by 2025. In Africa there is little knowledge about the disease and avenues for people to go for medical checkup.
Ann Aerts of Novartis Foundation said at the conference that regular blood pressure check-ups, people reducing salt intake, checking their alcohol intake and smoking as well as eating a balanced diet, and exercising regularly could significantly help.
The Cape Town conference on Urban Health ended on Tuesday and afforded health experts in Africa the opportunity to propose innovative strategies towards tackling the threats of hypertension and other non-communicable diseases that have taken a toll on the health of urban center dwellers.
The Novartis Foundation co-hosted the Urban Health in Africa Dialogue, with the International Society for Urban health (ISUH), InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) – Health (IAP), International Council for Science (ICSU), Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), and the University of Basel.
Source: Africafeeds.com/ Isaac Kaledzi
