The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday launched an ambitious initiative of screening and putting 75 million people with hypertension and diabetes on Standard Care by 2025, to mark World Hypertension Day.

This was announced at the G20 co-branded event “Accelerating the Prevention and Management of Hypertension and Diabetes” by Dr. V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog in the presence of Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan.

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Highlighting the innovative scheme, Dr Paul stated that this will be the largest expansion of  Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in the primary healthcare programme in the world with a community-based approach starting at the primary healthcare level.

This indicates a clear resolve of the government to address NCDs by allocating resources, capacity enhancement, mobilisation and multi-sectoral collaboration, he said. “Under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, India is determined to become a developed nation in the next 25 years in the Amrit Kaal. Towards this goal, India is making efforts to achieve results in social indicators like life expectancy, maternal mortality rate, and NCDs at par with developed nations,” he stressed.

The Outcome Budget document of the Union Budget 2023-2024 has for the first time introduced hypertension and diabetes treatment as output indicators, reflecting the government’s commitment to scale-up hypertension and diabetes coverage services.

Dr. Paul mentioned that the battle against NCDs has to be fought through the primary healthcare level and pointed out that India has created a platform to fight the menace through the creation of more than 1.5 lakh HWCs and operationalisation of telemedicine and digital health services.

To accelerate the prevention and management of hypertension, Dr Paul urged state teams to adhere to all SOPs especially the screening SOPs correctly at the grassroots since screening is the bedrock of successful management of any disease. However, he noted that only screening is not enough. Detection should lead to outcomes.

He, therefore, urged all stakeholders to ensure that at least 80 per cent of the diagnosed people are under treatment. The need for private sector engagement in this effort and the contribution of the academic and research sector in creating models and different building blocks for achieving the ambitious targets were also emphasised.