Professor Emeritus George Stergiou of the NKUA’s School of Medicine contributed to the development of the 2025 World Health Organization (WHO) Global report on hypertension https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240115569).
2025 WHO facts on hypertension
1. The worldwide prevalence of hypertension is about 30%, whereas in Eastern Mediterranean Region and in Greece it is 40%.
2. In 2024, it is estimated that hypertension affected around 1.4 billion adults aged 30–79 years worldwide. This number has doubled since 1990 and is expected to surpass 1.5 billion by 2030.
3. Global estimates for 2021 reveal that 53% of all cardiovascular mortality, including 58% of all deaths from stroke, and 31% of all deaths from chronic kidney disease were attributable to high systolic blood pressure.
4. Altogether, hypertension is responsible for 16% the global total mortality – more than any other risk factor.
5. Only 4 countries (Canada, Costa Rica, Iceland, and South Korea) have achieved hypertension control rates >50%. In Greece unfortunately only 305 of hypertensives have controlled blood pressure.
Professor Stergiou is President of the International Society of Hypertension for the term 2024-2026 (https://ish-world.com/our-officers-committees). He has been elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) of London and of Glasgow, and was Chairman of the European Society of Hypertension Working Group on Blood Pressure Measurement and Cardiovascular Variability (2016-2022).
He has more than 450 PubMed publications, h-index 100, and about 100,000 citations (Google Scholar).
