Cardiovascular disease in Northern Nigeria

The case files of 4,456 medical admissions in 1975--1976 at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Kaduna, Nigeria, included 354 cardiovascular patients. The most common causes were hypertension (45.5%), cardiomyopathy (20.6%) and chronic rheumatic heart disease (14.4%). The mean age of hypertensive and cardiovascular patients was lower than in Europe. The majority of hypertensive patients suffer from essential hypertension. Congestive cardiac failure is the commonest complication of hypertension and cardiomyopathy. Rheumatic valvular disease with mitral incompetence is frequent and sometimes severe in young people. Other cardiovascular diseases included pericardial disease, bacterial endocarditis, cor pulmonale, anaemic heart failure, congenital and syphilitic heart disease. Coronary heart disease was only encountered in non-Africans. Cardiovascular mortality in hospital was high (20%).