The main reason why there are more yellow Schedule V cards for free medicines than patients is that several patients have multiple cards for different chronic ailments.

Answering a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Ċensu Galea, Health Minister Joseph Cassar said that European Health Research in 2008 had shown that 79 per cent of patients taking cholesterol-reducing medicines also suffered from hypertension.

Some 56 per cent of those suffering from cardiac conditions also suffered from diabetes, 48 per cent from high cholesterol and 75 per cent from hypertension.

Dr Cassar said this showed these conditions had similar roots. Such risks increased with age.

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