Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have overtaken infectious diseases as the world’s leading cause of death. One of the key risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) is hypertension- or raised blood pressure. Hypertension currently affects one billion people worldwide, leading to heart attacks and strokes. Researchers estimate that raised blood pressure kills nine million people every year.
To say hypertension is become a common place in Nigeria is not far from the truth. This is because the disease condition has assumed an epidemic dimension. Today, hypertension affects almost people of all ages in Nigeria, especially those within the productive force.
In the past, it is seen as the disease of the elderly between the ages of 60 and above. Hypertension has shown to form the bulk of admissions in Nigerian hospitals, with the mean age of Nigerians that come down with hypertension said to be less than 50 years of age, according to medical reports.
More worrisome is the fact that about 30 million Nigerians (or 20 percent) of the adult population suffer from hypertension with only about 30 percent of this number (9 to 12 million Nigerians) aware they suffer from it, according to latest report released during 2013’s World Hypertension Day celebration.
Most hypertensive people have no symptoms at all, according to medical literature. Sometimes hypertension causes symptoms such as headache, shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain, palpitations of the heart and nose bleeds. It can be dangerous to ignore such symptoms, but neither can they be relied upon to signify the disease.
While many patients with high blood pressure do not have their blood pressures adequately controlled, giving rise to many preventable strokes and heart attacks that occur unnecessarily, experts believe that it is cheaper to prevent raised blood pressure through positive lifestyle changes compared to drug treatment.
Nigerians should be educated on the truth about CVD risk so that they can take action to protect themselves and their family. CVDs are a threat to attaining Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as young executives in their 30s and 40s are dying suddenly now due to raised blood pressure as the rise of this disease in the last 20 years has skyrocketed.
Whereas hypertension has assumed an epidemic dimension, there is an enormous financial burden associated with it as treatment of hypertension requires an investment over several years to ensure disease-free years among those affected.
BusinessDay Investigations show that patients with this condition are placed on a minimum of one to three drug therapies, depending on the severity of the disease condition in Nigeria. While the cost of most antihypertensive drugs range from N24 to N150 on a single therapy, a minimum of N54, 750 ($342.2) is spent annually on a single drug therapy, aside indirect costs, in a country where millions live for less than a dollar a day.
Irrespective of the low level of awareness of hypertension, to reduce the consequences, there is the need to make the drugs available. That is why we are championing for its availability and the slash in.
Also, low socioeconomic status and poor access to health services and medications increase the vulnerability of developing major cardiovascular events due to uncontrolled hypertension. Approximately, about $150 billion is said to be spent globally in direct cost in addressing hypertension, with cases of hypertension expected to rise as population ages.
We believe that there should be political will on the part of government and policymakers to address the growing menace of hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. On the other hand, health workers, the academic research community, civil society, the private sector, families and individuals all have a role to play in checking this rising scourge. Also, every Nigerian should of necessity understand the factors that trigger CVDs and conduct their lives appropriately to avoid the debilitating impact of these life sapping diseases.
