KUALA LUMPUR: The government is targeting to reduce the prevalence of high blood pressure among Malaysians by 25% come 2025, says the Health Ministry.

Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa said this was among the ministry’s key performance indicators (KPI) for non-communicable diseases (NCD), based on the NCD Global Targets by 2025 by the World Health Organisation.

Other targets were reducing salt consumption by 30% and keeping the obesity rate to below 15%, she added.

For diabetes specifically, Dr Zaliha said the ministry measures blood sugar levels among patients treated at public healthcare facilities using the HBA1C tests, with monitoring conducted by the National Diabetes Registry.

“In 2022, it was also found that 31.89% of diabetic patients had achieved an improvement in their blood sugar levels,” she said.

Dr Zaliha said this in response to a supplementary question by Datuk Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik (PH-Balik Pulau) in the Dewan Rakyat on Monday (June 12).

Muhammad Bakhtiar had asked about the ministry’s KPI towards reducing the rate of Malaysians having NCDs.

Earlier, Dr Zaliha told the Dewan Rakyat that the National Health Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2019 found the risk of obesity increased from 17.7% to 19.7% from 2015 to 2019.

Diabetes prevalence also increased from 13.4% in 2015 to 18.3% in 2019, while hypertension prevalence went from 33.3% in 2015 to 30% in 2019, she added.

“The government also launched the ‘Agenda Nasional Malaysia Sihat’ (ANMS) encompassing four pillars to ensure the nation’s health and well-being,” she said.

She was responding to Muhammad Bakhtiar’s question on the Health Ministry’s efforts to promote better health awareness among Malaysians.