The Lancet Global Health: Sustainable Development Goal 3 is unlikely to be achieved without renewed effort
Francesc Xavier Gómez-Olivé, field research manager at the University of the Witwatersrand, and Margaret Thorogood, honorary professor at the University of the Witwatersrand

“…Despite the social and economic burden of [cardiovascular disease deaths, including ischemic heart disease and stroke,] in [low- and middle-income] countries, research on the epidemiology, treatment, and risk markers for cardiovascular disease deaths has been scarce, preventing the development of essential evidence-based policies to address the burden. … Africa and India have a high prevalence of many cardiovascular risk factors associated with ischemic heart disease and stroke in high-income countries, such as tobacco use, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. … Establishment of risk factor scores for cardiovascular disease in low-income and middle-income countries would help to unravel this issue, but development of such scores requires large cohorts and long follow-up to have a sufficient number of cardiovascular disease deaths. … These deaths could increase unless a new effort is implemented to better understand the risk factors and improve the diagnosis, treatment, and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease in low-income and middle-income countries” (August 2018).