Friday, 20th May, 2022

Page 8
Health
DAILY ANALYST Friday, 20th May, 2022
Ashanti Region
tops hypertension
case in Ghana
The Ashanti Regional
Health Directorate
is worried over the
growing prevalence of
cases of hypertension
recorded in the region.
The region topped the Ghana
Health Service’s data repository
in 2021, with over 121,000 out of
the 612,000 hypertensive cases
recorded across Ghana.
The 2014 Ghana Demographic
Health Survey reveals hypertension
awareness is low in Ghana,
with more women knowing
their high blood pressure levels
than men.
According to the District
Health Information Manage-
ment System, hypertension was
the second leading cause of hospital
admissions in the Ashanti
region.
Regional health director, Dr.
Emmanuel Tinkorang, attributes
the growing statistics to sedentary
lifestyle.
“In Africa, there is an increasing
prevalence of these
non-communicable diseases
because of lifestyle changes.
Previously people were going to
farms, but now they are resorting
to vehicles. They are also
living sedentary and eating all
sorts of food.
“As result, people begin to
suffer from Metabolic Syndrome
and this is wreaking havoc in
this country,” he said.
The Ghana Health Service in
collaboration with the Healthy
Heart Africa programme has
instituted a community-based
campaign team across the districts
in the region.
The 13-member team has
been mandated to visit communities
to create awareness in a
bid to alleviate the number of
non-communicable diseases.
A data collected reveals over
252,000 people in the Ashanti
region have elevated blood
pressure levels with some 53,000
people diagnosed with hypertension.
Senior Technical Advisor for
PATH Ghana, Dr. Robert Yeboah
explained the rationale for the
programme.
“Healthy Heart essentially is
an access programme looking at
improving the quality of care for
hypertensive patients. Our work
revolves around training for
health workers, providing health
facilities with the necessary
equipment for screening and
diagnosis.
“We also maximize oppor-
tunities within our facilities to
create more awareness about
hypertension,” he said.
Nearly 30% of African adults
are estimated to have high blood
pressure.
The figure is however expected
to skyrocket to 150 million
among adults in Sub-Saharan
Africa by 2025.
A wellness centre has been
established for the public to
check their hypertension status
in efforts to curb the menace.
Global smokers exceed
1.1 billion and 200
million more who
use other tobacco
products, the
substance use remains a global
epidemic.
Global progress is threatened
by growing smoking rates
among children age 13 to 15
years in many countries and by
tobacco industry tactics such as
targeting poorer countries with
weak regulatory environments
and pushing novel products in
previously untapped markets.
The Seventh Edition of
the Tobacco Atlas, released
Wednesday by Vital Strategies
and the Tobacconomics team at
the University Illinois at Chicago
(UIC), finds that, although
more people overall are being
protected by effective regulatory
interventions including tobacco
taxes, smoke-free public
areas, access restrictions and
education, these efforts these
efforts must be much more
robust to contend with an
industry whose gross profits
have climbed to at least US $60
billion in 2020.
According to the data copied
to the Ghana News Agency, the
current prevalence of adult
tobacco use in Ghana is 2% and
not much has changed over the
last 30 years. In contrast, Togo
and Benin have made huge
strides to get down to Ghana’s
level with Cote d’Ivoire seeing
an uptick in male smoking.
One trend from data in
the Tobacco Atlas is “current
smokers,” which is anyone
who reported smoking in the
last 30 days. In many countries,
particularly in Africa, these
numbers are higher than
daily smoking, often for
socioeconomic reasons in that
smokers cannot afford to be
daily smokers.
Meanwhile, the tobacco
industry took full advantage
of the COVID-19 pandemic:
While countries diverted their
attention to the crisis, Big
Tobacco companies took the
Number of smokers around
the world exceeds 1.1 billion
– Tobacco Atlas
opportunity to increase market
shares, attract new customers,
retain smokers and polish their
corporate reputations.
Dr Jeffrey Drope, Research
Professor of Public Health at the
University of Illinois at Chicago
said “Now in its 20th year, the
Tobacco Atlas is a warning call
to all those who care about
global health and economic
development.”
“It demonstrates
unequivocally that tobacco
control works: For the first
time on record, global smoking
rates dropped, to 19.6% in 2019
from 22.6% in 2007. But uneven
and anemic implementation
of tobacco control measures
means that richer countries are
unlocking the economic and
health benefits of strong tobacco
control, while the industry
is still preying on emerging
economies in ways that will lock
in harms for a generation or
more.
Big Tobacco is a dinosaur
industry whose only way to grow
is by hooking kids on one of the
most addictive and harmful
products ever invented. An
urgent and sustained effort is
needed to aggressively regulate
this harmful industry and its
products to accelerate the end of
cigarettes as a mass consumer
product, save hundreds of
millions of lives, and spur
economic growth.”
The atlas identifies
devastating health and
economic costs of global tobacco
use: In 2019 alone, tobacco use
caused more than 8.67 million
deaths worldwide (6.53 million
men, 2.14 million women) and
approximately US $2 trillion in
economic damage. Most deaths
were attributable to smoking, but
1.3 million died from secondhand
smoke exposure. In 2019, nearly
half of all tobacco-related deaths
occurred in countries with high
Human Development Index
scores. However, deaths from
tobacco-related diseases are
expected to increase in future
years in lower-HDI countries as
today’s smokers sicken and die.
Youth tobacco use (girls
and/or boys) has increased in 63
of 135 countries surveyed, and
now more than 50 million 13- to
15-year-olds smoke cigarettes or
use smokeless tobacco products.
Currently, countries with the
highest prevalence of tobacco
use among youth generally have
a lower human development
index score. In several of these
countries, including Haiti and
Mauritania, tobacco use among
adolescent girls is now more
common than among adult
women, indicating that the
historically lower tobacco use
among females worldwide may
not continue in the near future.
“In the wake of COVID-19,
countries are reprioritising
public health and investing in
strategies to support health and
economic growth,” said Nandita
Murukutla, Vice President of
Research at Vital Strategies.
“For countries that want to
recover, tobacco control should
be high on their agenda. In
particular, tobacco taxes are a
triple win for health. driving
down smoking rates, deterring
initiation among youth, and
generating revenue that can pay
for other health interventions.
Graphic pack warnings and plain
packaging are proven highimpact,
low-cost interventions.
Plus, media campaigns can
reshape social norms and drive
millions to quit at extremely low
cost; almost every country in
the world is under-invested in
media.”
Dr.Kelly Henning, who leads
the Public Health programme at
Bloomberg Philanthropies said
“Global leaders must accelerate
tobacco control efforts to protect
the health of our youngest
generation.”
“Tobacco use is a major risk
factor for the world’s leading
killers including cancer, heart
disease, lung disease and
diabetes. The faster countries
can regulate tobacco and prevent
youth from starting, the more
lives that can be saved.”
First published in 2002, The
Tobacco Atlas uses bold graphics
and data visualization to
describe the scale of the tobacco
epidemic and bring the latest
peer-reviewed data to life.
The report tracks where
progress has been made in
tobacco control and details the
latest products and tactics being
deployed by the tobacco industry
to grow its profits and delay or
derail tobacco control efforts.
The Seventh Edition includes
new chapters on COVID-19,
counter-marketing and race,
ethnicity and equity, the last
co-authored with the African
American Leadership Council on
Tobacco Control.
Source: GNA