Ghana joins the World to mark World Hypertension Day on May 17

17th May every year is World Hypertension Day and Commemorated across the globe to promote healthy Cardiovascular and Circulatory health for ALL.

World Hypertension Day (WHD) promotes its theme Measure Your Blood Pressure Accurately, Control It, Live Longer! with the goal of increasing high blood pressure (BP) awareness, and especially accuracy in BP Measurement, toward effective treatment of hypertension for a healthy, longer life.

Raised blood pressure is the biggest single contributing risk factor to global health, and hypertension awareness and effective control has become even more crucial during the COVID-19 era because hypertension increases the risk of COVID-19 adverse events and mortality.

In recent years a significant increase in blood pressure (BP) levels has been observed in the country, where only 1 in 3 are aware o their hypertensive condition, and only roughly 8% have their BP controlled.

In 2019 the WHL issued the Sao Paulo CALL TO ACTION for the global prevention and control of high blood pressure. This year on WHD and members have issued a Call to Action for Hypertension Control in
Sub-Sahara Africa, the most challenging area in the world.

The Stroke Association Supportnetwork-Ghana (SASNET GHANA) and partners such as the Ghana NCD Alliance (GhNCDA), World Hypertension League, (WHL), Ghana Heart Initiative (GHI), African Stroke
Organization (ASO), World Heart Federation, CSO on SDG Goal #3, et al call on government through the Ministry of HEALTH (MOH) and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to urgently implement the call to ACTION FOR HYPERTENSION CONTROL IN GHANA NOW in order to prevent the needles deaths and the consequences from High Blood Pressure (BP) such as strokes, heart failures, heart attacks, kidney failures, among others.

An important initial step to control hypertension and help achieve the United Nations 2025 goal of a 25% reduction in uncontrolled hypertension is to improve hypertension diagnosis.

To increase awareness of hypertension diagnosis, World Hypertension Day promotes three critical components:

(1) share hypertension messaging and resources on social media and with local media

(2) promote routine and accurate measurement of BP by health‐care professionals at all clinical encounters

(3) promote access to blood pressure screenings and at no or low-cost effective blood pressure medications.