Dr Chukwunonso Ejiike, a researcher in epidemiology of chronic diseases says he has developed an app for the diagnosis of hypertension in children and adolescents.

Ejiike disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said that hypertension in children “is now a very common disease’’, adding that a review he carried out showed that between 1976 and 2016, it rose to around five to eight per cent.

He described the percentage as high, saying that it was what prompted the development of the app that would ensure early diagnosis and prevention.

“Hypertension cast into adulthood causes a lot of morbidity and mortality and that is something we have to check.

“But unfortunately to diagnose hypertension in paediatric, the paediatrician needs to measure the child’s blood pressure, height, age and the sex.

“He then checks the data he has with the child’s blood pressure across the percentiles that are specific for age, sex and height.

“All these procedures make the process very laborious and because of the drudgery involved in it many doctors are unable to do that.

“And people who are not trained like parents and caregivers are not able to check the blood pressures of their children.”

Ejiike said that the app was designed to simplify the diagnosis of hypertension and make it possible for people to do it easily.

The scientist said the app would make it easy to detect hypertension in children and adolescents in one step.

He said the app could be installed in the mobile phones or computers and the person could measure the child’s blood pressure in the traditional way.

“The parent could input the data making reference to the child’s height and age and be able to predict whether the child is hypertensive.’’

Ejiike called for the commercialisation of the app because it would help in ensuring that international guidelines that require that any child that visits a hospital should be screened for hypertension would be met.

He said this was possible because the process would become easier and also enable doctors to attend to more patients and reduce the number of mortality in the nation’s hospitals.