Nigeria, Oct. 29 -- As the nurse strapped the cuff around her arm, Faith Bako sat still, feeling the pressure build up slowly. After a few seconds, the blood pressure monitor blinked and showed 180 over 110.

At first, the numbers meant little to her; it was the nurse's pause, not the beeping machine, that told her something was wrong.

After weeks of feeling light-headed, the 31-year-old had visited the hospital for a check-up. Living in Masaka, a town in Nasarawa State, Ms Bako spends nearly three hours daily commuting to and from her office in Abuja, Nigeria's capital city, often on rickety public vehicles on bad roads.

She experienced headaches almost daily and blamed her persistent headaches on stress and exhaustion. But as the nurs...