The World Health Organization and partner organisations have set out a global roadmap for tackling hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, over the next decade and beyond. The plan brings research, clinical standards, access to health products, implementation and accountability into a shared programme of work.
The roadmap covers 2026 to 2035 and is intended to accelerate progress in screening, prevention, diagnosis and treatment. It identifies priority actions, deliverables and indicative milestones for the coming decade, rather than announcing a new treatment or changing advice for individual patients.
The roadmap brings together work developed through a global summit in May and the new October launch. Its ten-year framework sets priorities for coordinated action by governments, researchers, health professionals and funders.
A coordinated programme rather than a single intervention
The five strategic areas are research and innovation; norms and standards; access to health products; implementation; and advocacy and accountability. WHO says the framework is designed to align technical, policy and investment priorities and strengthen health systems, with particular attention to equitable access to quality care in low- and middle-income countries.
The roadmap identifies 20 priority research questions across innovation, implementation and cross-cutting themes. They include work on the predictive and diagnostic value of angiogenic biomarkers, integrated prevention and management approaches such as care bundles, standardised outcome measures, and community-based ways to support earlier detection, referral and care-seeking. It also calls for women to be meaningfully involved in setting research priorities and assessing interventions.
The document sets out a timetable for turning those questions into funded work. WHO and partners plan to refine priorities, map existing research, identify study designs and funding gaps, and clarify the evidence needed for policy decisions between the third quarter of 2026 and the first quarter of 2027. Donors and research funders are expected to begin using the priorities to guide investment from the third quarter of 2027.
Work towards consolidated clinical guidance
On standards, the roadmap proposes a steering group to examine whether key guideline organisations can jointly develop and publish consolidated global guidance. Its stated purpose is to reduce fragmentation and inconsistencies, while reflecting available evidence, women’s perspectives and the varied circumstances of lower-resource settings.
The timetable envisages defining the guideline scope and proposing a development group by the final quarter of 2026. Participating organisations are expected to pool resources during 2027 for evidence reviews and profiles, with a target of publishing consolidated guidance in the fourth quarter of that year. The roadmap describes this as a target, not a completed guideline. WHO and other developers are to continue responding to emerging evidence through existing processes in the interim.
Further planned work includes improving access to medicines and diagnostics, developing innovations with affordability and scale in mind, and strengthening implementation through national policy adaptation, workforce training and quality improvement. After the proposed guidance is published, the roadmap envisages dissemination and practical tools such as clinical protocols, job aids and training materials during 2028.
Addressing gaps in care and research
WHO estimates that hypertensive disorders complicate 10 to 15 per cent of pregnancies worldwide and account for about 16 per cent of maternal deaths, or an estimated 42,000 deaths each year. Its release also estimates more than 500,000 stillbirths and newborn deaths. These are global estimates, not counts from a newly published surveillance exercise.
The organisation identifies gaps in access to blood-pressure measurement, urine-protein testing and essential medicines, alongside weaknesses in referral systems, shortages of trained health workers and limited emergency obstetric services. It also points to an innovation gap: the roadmap says few medicines have been specifically developed and approved by regulators for preventing or treating pre-eclampsia or eclampsia, while research investment has concentrated largely on diagnostics.
A global summit convened by WHO in May 2026 brought together more than 140 partners to identify the 20 research priorities. The new roadmap is intended to connect that agenda with standards, product access, service delivery and accountability. Its stated aim is to help proven interventions and future innovations reach women and babies who need them, and contribute to wider goals on preventing maternal and newborn deaths and morbidity.
The plan therefore depends on sustained coordination among governments, funders, researchers, health professionals, industry, civil society, development partners and people with lived experience. Its milestones are a framework for future action; they do not by themselves demonstrate that access or outcomes have already changed.
