Geneva, Switzerland | September 24, 2025
The World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that an estimated 1.4 billion people were living with hypertension in 2024, with just over one in five managing to keep the condition under control.
The findings were published in the organisation’s second Global Hypertension Report, which highlights the growing burden of high blood pressure worldwide and its devastating health and economic consequences.
According to the report, uncontrolled hypertension is a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, and dementia.
WHO noted that while effective medicines exist, access remains highly unequal. Only 28 percent of low-income countries reported general availability of all recommended hypertension drugs in pharmacies or primary health facilities, compared with 93 percent of high-income countries.
The report further warned that from 2011 to 2025, cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, are projected to cost low- and middle-income countries about 3.7 trillion US dollars, equivalent to nearly two percent of their combined GDP.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for urgent global action to improve diagnosis, expand treatment, and promote healthier lifestyles to curb the rising tide of hypertension.
He stressed that timely interventions could save millions of lives and significantly reduce the economic toll of the disease.
The report underscores the need for countries to adopt standardized care protocols, ensure affordable medicine supply, and address key risk factors such as high salt intake, physical inactivity, and tobacco use.
