NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

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.