Harish Rajpal MedicAlert® Scholarship

The Foundation is pleased to award the Harish Rajpal MedicAlert® Scholarship to Gerald Naepi to assist with his PhD on Protecting the Heart from Diabetes and Hypertension: A Community-Guided Preclinical Study. 

Gerald is passionate about improving Pacific health and hopes to tap into his background in cardiac physiology to develop a unique line of Pacific-led research to find new solutions for health conditions that greatly affect Pacific communities. 
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• Hypertension (high blood pressure) affects one in five New Zealanders, and the number of people affected by diabetes is projected to increase by 90% over the next ten years.
• People with hypertension may not feel symptoms but are at risk of heart attack or stroke.
• Although there are treatments, only 50% of patients with hypertension have adequate control of their blood pressure; and despite this, there have been no new cardiovascular medications for 20 years.
• Controlling blood pressure alone would halve the number of strokes in New Zealand, which total 9,000 per year. Strokes are the second largest cause of death in New Zealand and are the greatest cause of adult disability.
• Around three-quarters of people with diabetes also have high blood pressure, and nearly half the people with hypertension do not regulate their blood glucose normally.

Gerald is being a trailblazer for the next generation of Pacific researchers, highlighting the importance of science as a tool to have lasting impact on community wellbeing.

We know this work will honour Dr Harish Rajpal’s legacy and contribute to preventing avoidable harm in Aotearoa and wider.