World Hypertension Day | Health Ministry announces '75/25' initiative for people with hypertension, diabetes

New Delhi, May 17: To mark World Hypertension Day, 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.

The '75/25' initiative was announced by Dr VK Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog at the G20 co-branded event titled "Accelerating the Prevention and Management of Hypertension and Diabetes", organized by Union Health Ministry and World Health Organization (WHO) as part of World Hypertension Day. According to an official release, the Outcome Budget document of 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.

Highlighting the innovative '75/25' scheme, Dr V K Paul stated that this will be the largest expansion of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) in primary healthcare programs in the world with a community-based approach starting at the primary healthcare level. "This indicates 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 Narendra 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.

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 Health and Welfare Centres (HWC) and operationalization of telemedicine and digital health services.