Background: South Africa is experiencing an increasing burden of cardiovascular diseases, including coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke. We aimed to obtain overall national prevalence estimates of CHD and stroke in South Africa.
Methods: Studies conducted in South Africa were systematically reviewed from PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science from January 1990 to July 2017. Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted on the selected studies to determine the overall prevalence of CHD and stroke.
Results: Out of 2 466 studies, only 12 covering 75 140 participants reported the national prevalence of CHD and stroke. All 12 studies estimated the national prevalence of both diseases based on self-reported disease status. The overall national prevalence was 1.29 (95% CI = 0.83; 1.75) and 4.29 (95% CI = 3.13; 5.45) for CHD and stroke, respectively. Only one study reported incidence rates so we did not perform any meta-analysis of incidence rates.
Conclusions: There are very few studies on national prevalence of CHD and stroke in South Africa. Well-structured registries for CHD and stroke are required to accurately identify the disease burden and enable adequate resources to be allocated for the implementation of appropriate prevention and management programmes.
Keywords: South Africa; coronary heart disease; meta‐analysis; stroke.