India Hypertension Control Initiative

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

India on Wednesday won a United Nations (UN) award for its ‘India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI)’, a large-scale hypertension intervention under the National Health Mission that saw 3.4 million hypertensive people identified and put on treatment at various government health facilities.

What is Hypertension?

• Hypertension was defined as having systolic blood pressure level greater than or equal to 140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure level greater than or equal to 90 mmHg or/and taking anti-hypertensive medication to lower his/her blood pressure.

What is the IHCI?

• Recognising that hypertension is a serious, and growing, health issue in India, the Health Ministry, the Indian Council of Medical Research, State Governments, and WHO-India began a five-year initiative to monitor and treat hypertension.
• India has committed to a “25 by 25″ goal, which aims to reduce premature mortality due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by 25% by 2025.
• One of the nine voluntary targets includes reducing the prevalence of high blood pressure by 25% by 2025.
• The programme was launched in November 2017.
• Before IHCI, many patients travelled to higher-level facilities such as community health centres (block level) or district hospitals in the public sector for hypertension treatment.
• Over three years, all levels of health staff at the primary health centres and health wellness centres were trained to provide treatment and follow-up services for hypertension.

Winners of the 2022 UN Inter-Agency Task Force and the WHO Special Programme on Primary Health Care Awards

• Eighteen organizations received the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on the Prevention and Control of NCDs and the WHO Special Programme on Primary Health Care (PHC) awards. 
• Winners were announced on 21 September 2022 during the annual Friends of the Task Force meeting during the UN General Assembly.

Awards were made in three categories: 

1. Ministries of health (or government agency under a ministry of health)
2. Ministries (or government agencies) beyond health 
3. Non-state actors (non-governmental organization, academic institutions and philanthropy).