High burden of hypertension in Punjab: PGIMER for developing of district level plan for prevention of disease

The department of community medicine and school of public health, PGIMER will hold a state-level sensitisation meeting to strengthen political and administrative commitment on hypertension and to develop a state and district level plan for prevention and management of hypertension services in Punjab on November 30.

“Hypertension is a silent killer and is responsible for huge morbidity and mortality due to its role in the causation of coronary heart diseases, stroke and other vascular complications. It is also an established fact that hypertension is directly responsible for 51% of all stroke deaths and 45% of all coronary heart disease (CHD) deaths in India,” said Dr Sonu Goel, professor at the department.

As per recently released country-wide surveys, Punjab has a very high prevalence of hypertension. The unadjusted prevalence of hypertension in Punjab is 35.7% (men 41%, women 25.4%) against the prevalence in India as 25.3%. Further, as per the global burden of disease report 2016, the state-wise DALY for high blood pressure was among the highest at 4,000 per 1,00,000.

The meeting on November 30 aims to strengthen the politico-institutional framework of Indian hypertension control initiative (IHCI) at the state level for longer-term sustainability of cardiovascular disease component of health ministry’s national programme for control of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and stroke (NPCDCS). Health minister, Punjab Balbir Singh Sidhu will attend the meeting.