Tackling heart failure in sub-Saharan Africa: the imperious need for hypertension prevention and control

摘要

Heart failure (HF) is a leading contributor to the global burden of disease, affecting about 26 million people worldwide [1]. It is associated with high morbidity, recurrent and prolonged hospitalization, poor quality of life, premature death and massive economic loss [1, 2]. Sub-Saharan African (SSA) populations are disproportionally affected. According to the International Congestive Heart Failure (INTER-CHF) prospective cohort study, patients with HF in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have the highest mortality rate, with a third of them who die within a year [2]. The excess HF-related mortality in the region is mostly attributed to weak health care systems that are already overwhelmed with the burden of infectious diseases, and to poor access to guideline-directed medical treatment [2, 3]. Furthermore, HF in SSA occurs at a much younger age, mostly in professionally active adults, leading to significant loss of economic productivity [4-6].