in addition to the successes seen in canada and peru, the study found that taiwan, south korea, japan and some western european countries had the lowest rates of hypertension among women at less than 24 per cent. eritrea, bangladesh, ethiopia and the solomon islands had the lowest rates for men at less than 25 per cent. at the other end of the scale, more than 50 per cent of women in paraguay and tuvalu had high blood pressure, as did over half the men in argentina, paraguay, tajikistan and several countries in central and eastern europe.
improvements in the detection and control of hypertension in middle-income nations such as costa rica, kazakhstan, south africa and iran show expanding health care and reinforcing primary care can yield big benefits, researchers said.
“low detection and treatment rates that persist in the world’s poorest nations, coupled with the rising number of people who have hypertension, will shift an increasing share of the burden of vascular and kidney diseases to sub-saharan africa, oceania and south asia,” said leanne riley, a co-author of the study from who, switzerland. “improving the capacity of these countries to detect and treat hypertension as part of primary health care and universal health coverage must be accelerated.”