Hypertension-Driven Disease Rapidly Rising In Sub-Saharan Africa

Friday, June 28, 2013

Based on the experience of a large hospital in Tanzania, Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have discovered a “startlingly” high burden of hypertension in this sub-Saharan African country.

In the Journal of Hypertension, the researchers say non-communicable disease — driven primarily by hypertension, resulting in stroke and other cardiovascular diseases — accounted for nearly half of the deaths and admissions during a three-year period at Weill Bugando Medical Center, one of Tanzania’s preeminent teaching hospitals.

Previous research has hinted that hypertension may be a rising health issue in Tanzania, but this study, the first large prospective evaluation of hospital diagnoses and death, provides hard, confirmatory data, according to the researchers.

It paints a picture of an African country in which infectious and tropical diseases are declining, while stroke and other non-communicable diseases are rapidly increasing, says the study’s lead author, Dr. Robert Peck, an assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College and Weill Bugando Medical College.

Source: Red Orbit (link opens in a new window)

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