A single injection that reduces high blood pressure for 6- months!
Sub- Saharan Africa is slowly becoming a haven for non- communicable diseases ( NCD’s) and cardiovascular diseases are leading the cause. Botswana, as part of Sub- Sahara, is no exception as she continues to accumulate rapidly increasing numbers of patients diagnosed with NCD’s which often become life- threatening.
The leading risk factor for deaths associated with cardiovascular diseases is hypertension, or as commonly known, high blood pressure ( madi a matona).
A study recently conducted in the country found out that almost a third of the adult population in Botswana are living with hypertension and only 9 percent of those patients are able to keep the condition controlled. One can speculate a number of reasons as to why this depressingly low percentage of people that are able to keep high blood pressure under control, which we know can sometimes have variation that is determined by geographical location.
Some of us grew up in villages watching our parents and grandparents having to take endless high blood pressure medication daily, some of them having to walk to and from a clinic every morning to get their daily dose, a situation that pleased none of them.
If anything, one could argue that the walking and traveling to clinics exacerbated their conditions at the time. I therefore, bring you good news from the medical world that there is an on- going study that is investigating a potential hypertension treatment drug ( called Zilebesiran) that, if successful, will definitely be a significant improvement to the conventional treatments that we are used to, in every possible way.
According to the results obtained from the first study ( called KARDIA - which enrolled 378 patients who were observed for 6- months, the drug managed to reduce angiotensinogen ( a hormone that causes high blood pressure) by 88 – 98 percent in the patients over the 6- month period of observation. It has also shown no sign of causing organ damage.
Many of the existing high blood pressure treatments have been attributed to causing a lot of damage to organs like the liver, kidney, heart etc, which in the end still become fatal to the patients. So this new drug is showing serious promise and could be beneficial in so many ways.
If successful, it will be taken only twice every year ( once in 6- months) as an injection, subcutaneously. You could imagine what a great help this would be to ageing patients who no longer have the energy to travel to hospitals and clinics every single day to get hypertension treatment.
There are also efforts being made to determine if the drug could be administered at home without any need to frequently visit a health facility. The second phase of the study is on- going and expected to complete in December 2025.
Not only will this improve livelihoods in general, it will also be a huge economic boost to every country as they will no longer have to buy many doses of different hypertension treatments.
STRIVE FOR A HEALTHIER AFRICA.
Kenneth T. Photlokwe
MSc Medicine – Wits University Facebook: On Health with Kenneth