PAHO highlights urgent need to accelerate hypertension control

At a United Nations General Assembly side event at the Yale Club, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director, Dr. Jarbas Barbosa called for urgent action to scale up hypertension control in the Americas.

Co-hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), Resolve to Save Lives, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, the event coincided with the release of WHO’s second Global Hypertension Report, which shows 1.4 billion people worldwide live with high blood pressure, but only one in five have it under control.

“The report confirms what we already know: hypertension remains the world’s deadliest yet most manageable health threat,” Dr. Barbosa said. “Behind these numbers are millions of preventable strokes, heart attacks, kidney failure, dementia, disabilities, and premature deaths.”

The WHO report details gaps in hypertension prevention and treatment, especially in low- and middle-income countries where only 28% have consistent availability of all WHO-recommended hypertension medicines in pharmacies or primary care facilities, compared to 93% in high-income nations. Uncontrolled hypertension costs these countries an estimated US$3.7 trillion between 2011 and 2025—about 2% of their combined GDP.

Yet, “successful interventions are possible—and they are happening,” Dr. Barbosa emphasized. Countries that prioritize hypertension control, adopt strong public health policies like reducing salt and tobacco, and strengthen primary care with standardized protocols and access to medicines are seeing better outcomes.

HEARTS initiative: A model for success

HEARTS in the Americas initiative—which implements WHO’s Global HEARTS technical package—exemplifies this progress. “Today, 33 countries are committed to HEARTS, 28 are actively implementing it, 12 have integrated it into over 80% of their primary care networks, and more than 10,000 facilities participate. Over 6- million people are receiving hypertension treatment, with 60% achieving blood pressure control.”

He highlighted the transformative impact of HEARTS- the WHO initiative for cardiovascular disease management and set of cultural traits for employees such as Humble, Effective, Adaptable, Remarkable, and Transparent.

“ In El Salvador and Cuba, HEARTS has catalyzed the transformation of primary care. In the Dominican Republic, more than 4- million people now benefit from free treatment for hypertension and diabetes. In Chile, trained pharmacists and nurses manage patients following the HEARTS clinical pathway, based on a task-shifting model. In Ecuador, HEARTS training has been adopted as a national strategy. Additionally, 1.5 million health workers have been trained through PAHO’s Virtual Campus.

Dr Barbosa noted that HEARTS has shown how evidence can be translated into action at scale, “by simplifying clinical decisions, improving continuity of care, enabling task-sharing, and ensuring reliable access to medicines and validated devices”.

The initiative is also helping countries reimagine how they manage cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic diseases in primary care.

“These achievements prove the tools work, and give us confidence that we can accelerate progress in hypertension control and management of NCDs even further.”

With just five years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.4—reducing premature mortality from NCDs by one-third—Dr. Barbosa stressed the urgency of expanding successful interventions.

“PAHO is building on the successes of HEARTS to scale up the comprehensive ‘Better Care for NCDs’ initiative,” he said. He also highlighted the PAHO Strategic Fund, which supports pooled procurement of quality-assured medicines and technologies at competitive prices.

“We know the cost of inaction- millions of lives lost prematurely to preventable diseases,” Dr. Barbosa concluded. “The tools exist, the evidence is clear, and now is the time to act with urgency, equity, and solidarity to ensure that we achieve the global targets for NCDs, leaving no one behind.”

In the Caribbean, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, non-communicable diseases (NCD’s), which includes hypertension, are among the leading causes of death.