A Fellow in Public Health at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Kwame Sarpong Asiedu, has said Ghana must move from a healthcare system that waits for sick people to report to hospitals to one that actively screens apparently healthy people for chronic diseases.

Speaking on the Joy FM Super Morning Show on Thursday, September 10, during a discussion on hypertension, Mr Asiedu said a large number of people could be living with hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases without knowing it because the conditions often show no obvious symptoms.

His comments came after concerns about estimates suggesting that about 70% of Ghanaians could be hypertensive without knowing it.

Read also: Cardiologist warns uncontrolled hypertension is killing more Ghanaians below 50

He said the concern should extend to cardiovascular diseases more broadly, including conditions linked to high cholesterol.

"I don't want us to limit it to hypertension on its own,” Mr Asiedu said.

“Cardiovascular disease generally, because sometimes people even don't know that high cholesterol in itself and the position of cholesterol in the bloodstream can decrease the blood flow to the penile area as well,” he explained.

According to him, many people in Ghana could have elevated cholesterol levels without being aware of it.

“A lot of people are walking around with elevated cholesterol levels in Ghana. They have no idea,” he said.

He said that cardiovascular disease is a broad category and includes hypertension and coronary heart disease, among others.

“So I go, and I say cardiovascular diseases; hypertension is one of them. Coronary heart disease can be another,” he said.

Mr Asiedu attributed the problem partly to the lack of widespread screening for chronic diseases.

“And why does that happen? Because we do not screen for these diseases widely,” he said.

He pointed to countries where routine screening is introduced at certain ages as an example of how Ghana could identify diseases earlier.

“In countries where deaths from cardiovascular diseases occur after 70 years. They start screening around the 40th birthday,” he said.

Using the United Kingdom as an example, he said people are routinely invited to undergo screening as they reach certain age groups.

“In the UK, for example, on your 40th birthday, you get a message through your letterbox which says go and screen. After 50, you get another message,” he said.

Mr Asiedu said that Ghana needs to develop a similar culture of proactive screening rather than relying mainly on patients to seek medical care after symptoms have appeared.

“We have never had a system in place that screens,” he said.

Mr Asiedu said Ghana's healthcare system had historically depended heavily on people becoming unwell and then presenting themselves at health facilities.

“Our health system, until the free primary healthcare policy that is being rolled out, was antiquated. It depended on the patient going to the hospital. That has been reversed,” he said.

He said the focus should now shift towards identifying people who appear healthy but may already have an underlying condition.

“If you read now, it is the healthcare system looking for the well who are ill,” he said.

“That is how we would reverse this. Until we actively look for the well who are ill, 70% would continue to walk around and be undiagnosed because they don't know.”

###Mr Asiedu also linked the issue to the way some men respond when they develop erectile dysfunction.

He said some men may experience erectile problems as a consequence of an underlying health condition but fail to investigate the cause.

“And when they have symptoms like erectile dysfunction, they would go and take the aphrodisiacs,” he said.

Mr Asiedu said one of the biggest challenges in dealing with hypertension is that it can develop without producing noticeable symptoms.

“A lot of them. And people don't know they are undiagnosed. Why? Because they are what we call asymptomatic,” he said.

Mr Asiedu said some products sold as herbal aphrodisiacs may contain pharmaceutical substances without consumers knowing what they are taking.

“The sad thing about the aphrodisiacs is the fact that a lot of them actually are not herbal."

“They make concoctions. If you don't know, you are taking that,” he added.

According to Mr Asiedu, this can be particularly dangerous for people who may already have an undiagnosed cardiovascular condition.

“That in itself can give you a cardiovascular attack because you don't even know you are taking that medication,” he said.