ISLAMABAD, Dec 14: Over 15 million people, about the size of population living in big cities like Karachi, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, are suffering from hypertension and blood pressure in Pakistan.

This was observed in an opening session of the 6th annual conference of Pakistan Hypertension League (PHL) Rawalpindi/Islamabad chapter here at a local hotel.

The participants of the conference stressed the need to include hypertension in the list of government’s campaign against prevalent diseases like Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Polio.

While speaking on the occasion, the federal health minister, Mohammad Nasir Khan, assured about government’s commitment towards providing better health facilities to all irrespective of social status.

“The government whole heartily supports all preventive strategies on all forums,” the minister said. Hypertension or high blood pressure is a worldwide epidemic with over 690 million people being hypertensive, he added.

“In Pakistan, about 29 per cent of the people over 25 years of age in rural areas have never had their blood pressure checked and the percentage is greater in urban areas.”

The minister said high blood pressure was a leading factor behind heart diseases and strokes and affected about 17.9 per cent of adults (15 years or older) in Pakistan.

Referring to a study conducted by Pakistan Medical Research Council, he said 5.5 million men and 5.3 million women were suffering from hypertension.

“This is one of the major risk factors for strokes, coronary heart diseases, and heart and kidney failures. About 30 per cent of the worldwide deaths occurs due to cardiovascular diseases.”

Nasir Khan said the WHO estimated that five million deaths per year worldwide occurred due to strokes, which were a result of high blood pressure, while over 30 million people were suffering from disabling effects of strokes.