17.5-28% of adults in Ghana are hypertensive-Health Ministry

          



The Ministry of Health has revealed that about 17.5 to 28 percent of the Ghanaian adult population is hypertensive. Director of Policy and Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the ministry, Dr. Odame Ankrah said over 70 percent of the patient with hypertension are not aware and not on treatment. According to him “only 5 to 13 percent of those on treatment are controlled and nearly half of the hypertensives have target organ damage i.e. complications”. Delivering a speech on behalf of the Deputy Health Minister, Hon Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu at the launch of the Ghana Heart Initiative Pilot Project, Dr Odame Ankrah said that “non-communicable diseases have a high economic burden and have the potential of tipping households into poverty and maintaining them in it”. He stressed that in a study of twenty three low-middle income countries (LMICS), it was estimated that US$84 billion of economic production have been lost from heart diseases, stroke and diabetes alone between 2006 and 2015”.

The Director at the ministry mentioned that the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that mortality from non-communicable diseases will increase by 17 percent in the next 10 years, with the largest increase in mortality in developing countries.
On his part, Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) stressed the need for partnership with private entities to combat Non-communicable and cardiovascular diseases. Dr. Nsiah-Asare noted that it has become necessary for private organization to work hand in hand with the government because the government alone cannot execute the task at hand. The GHS Director General said “CVD’s are a major threat to our society and they affect the productive age group, the breadwinners in families”. He added “CVD’s death are usually sudden and premature from stokes and hard diseases as well as the associated chronic kidney diseases. Unfortunately, our culture and believe systems still encourage, even the very learned, to attribute these death to superstition: bewitchment and curses”. The Ghana Heart Initiative according to project organizers seeks to improve the risk assessment and management of cardiovascular diseases at tertiary secondary, and primary levels of care offered in public health facilities in Ghana.  It is being piloted in health facilities initially the Greater Accra Region in partnership with Health Ministries and Ghana Health Services.

Project Director of the Ghana Heart Initiative, Dr. Alfred Doku said the project is targeted at Ghanaians with non-communicable diseases with the objective of improving the risk management through guidelines development, capacity strengthening and supporting health facilities among others. The pilot is expected to last for two years.

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