KIU, Western Campus – The Ministry of Health has encouraged the general public to go for regular health checkups to ascertain their general heart condition, after drawing parallels between underlying heart conditions and COVID-19 fatalities.

In the latest of a series of COVID-19 sensitisation drives, the Ministry of Health revealed that 80% of Uganda’s 97 COVID-19 deaths occurred in people with high blood pressure as an underlying condition.

“8 out of 10 of the COVID-19 deaths in #Uganda presented with high blood pressure as an underlying condition. The public is advised to go for regular medical check-ups to know your health status and strongly adhere to COVID-19 SOPs,” reads a message posted on the ministry’s social media pages.

After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that people with underlying health conditions including high blood pressure faced the highest risk of succumbing to the virus, which has infected more than 40 million people worldwide and killed over one million.