Over six million people across the Americas are currently receiving treatment for hypertension through the HEARTS in the Americas initiative, with 60 percent of them successfully achieving blood pressure control. This milestone was highlighted at a United Nations General Assembly side event at the Yale Club in New York, where Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director Dr. Jarbas Barbosa underscored the urgent need to expand hypertension control in the region.
Co-hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), Resolve to Save Lives, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, the event coincided with the launch of WHO’s second Global Hypertension Report, which revealed that 1.4 billion people worldwide live with high blood pressure, yet only one in five have it under control.
Dr. Barbosa describe hypertension as “the world’s deadliest yet most manageable health threat.” Behind the statistics, he noted, are millions of preventable strokes, heart attacks, kidney failures, cases of dementia, and premature deaths. The report also exposed glaring inequalities: in low- and middle-income countries, just 28 percent of pharmacies and primary care facilities consistently stock all WHO-recommended hypertension medicines, compared to 93 percent in high-income nations. The cost of uncontrolled hypertension to developing countries between 2011 and 2025 is staggering—estimated at US$3.7 trillion, or roughly 2 percent of their combined GDP.
Through strong policies on salt reduction and tobacco use, alongside standardized treatment protocols and reliable access to medicines, countries participating in the HEARTS initiative are showing that better outcomes are possible. Currently, 33 countries have committed to HEARTS, 28 are actively implementing it, and more than 10,000 facilities are involved. In El Salvador and Cuba, HEARTS has transformed primary healthcare. In the Dominican Republic, over four million people now benefit from free treatment for hypertension and diabetes. In Chile, trained nurses and pharmacists manage patients under the HEARTS clinical pathway, while Ecuador has adopted HEARTS training as a national standard. Across the region, 1.5 million health workers have been trained through PAHO’s Virtual Campus.
For Guyana, these figures paint a sobering yet urgent picture. With an estimated 23 percent of adults living with hypertension, Guyana could have between 160,000 and 185,000 citizens affected by the condition—many undiagnosed and untreated. Cardiovascular disease is already the country’s leading cause of death, with hypertension a major driver of strokes and heart disease. If the HEARTS benchmark of 60 percent blood pressure control among treated patients were applied nationally, tens of thousands of Guyanese lives could be spared the devastating effects of unmanaged hypertension.
Hospitals, already under strain, face mounting pressure from complications of uncontrolled blood pressure, including dialysis needs, cardiac care, and long-term rehabilitation. PAHO’s findings emphasize that the solution does not lie solely in hospitals but in strengthening community-level care. Standardized treatment protocols, task-sharing among nurses and community health workers, and reliable supply chains for medicines and blood pressure devices are critical to keeping patients stable before complications arise. Guyana’s Ministry of Health has already partnered with PAHO/WHO to pilot and assess the HEARTS initiative in several regions, with plans to scale it nationwide.
With just five years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of reducing premature deaths from non-communicable diseases by one-third, PAHO is urging countries to act swiftly. The successes of HEARTS demonstrate that the tools exist, the evidence is clear, and meaningful change is possible.
