NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday won a UN award for its Hypertension Control Initiative. The initiave is a large-scale intervention under the National Health Mission (NHM).
Announcing the achievement, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted, “India wins an @UN award for “India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI)” - a large scale hypertension intervention within existing primary healthcare system under National Health Mission. IHCI has strengthened PM @NarendraModi Ji’s mission to ensure health & wellness for all.”
The ‘2022 UN Interagency Task Force, and WHO Special Programme on Primary Health Care Award’ was announced at the UN General Assembly side event in New York. The award comes at a time when the WHO has estimated that one in every four adults in India suffers from hypertension and only 12 per cent of these adults have hypertension under control. Under the initiative, 3.4 million hypertensive people were identified and put on treatment at various government health facilities.
IHCI is a multi-partner initiative of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), WHO Country Office for India and Resolve to Save Lives (Technical partner).
Hypertension or uncontrolled blood pressure is one of the risk factors for cardiovascular-related diseases such as stroke, heart attack, etc. Cardiovascular deaths are responsible for one-third of the total deaths in India.
“Hypertension kills more adults than any other cause. Treatment of people with a high-risk of CVD is one of the best buys recommended by the WHO and scaling hypertension treatment and control can save millions of lives in the next decade,” according to Roderico H. Ofrin, WHO Representative to India.