The Ghana Demographic Health Survey has revealed a disturbingly high prevalence of hypertension among males in the Ashanti Region.

Those between the ages of 15 and 49, were found to be prone to abnormally high blood pressure.

Dr. Mrs. Alberta Biritwum Nyarko, Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) Health Director, said they “are 10 times likely to have the disease than males in the same age group, elsewhere in the country”.

She made the findings of the survey known at the annual health performance review meeting in Kumasi.

She could, however, not tell what was making more men in the region increasingly hypertensive, except to say that further research was being carried out to determine the cause.

The meeting brought together health professionals from the various facilities and medical institutions, chiefs and representatives from civil society organizations.

Dr. Mrs. Biritwum-Nyarko identified hypertension as the third highest cause of death in the metropolis.

They were therefore determined to launch sustained public education and health outreach programmes to reverse the trend, she added.

She spoke of the success they were making to bring down maternal deaths, saying that, it had reduced to 290 per 100,000 livebirths, from 336 per 100,000 livebirths.

Infant mortality, she indicated, had also dropped from 3.6 per 1,000 livebirths to 1.9 per 1,000 livebirths.