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New and im­proved med­ica­tions for car­dio­vas­cu­lar and oth­er chron­ic dis­eases, as well as men­tal health con­di­tions, will soon be in­tro­duced un­der the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP). Plans are al­so un­der­way to pro­vide ad­vanced spe­cial­ist-pre­scribed treat­ments not cur­rent­ly cov­ered un­der the pro­gramme.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe an­nounced the up­com­ing changes dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

Fol­low­ing a com­pre­hen­sive re­view, rec­om­men­da­tions were made to mod­ernise and im­prove CDAP, which cur­rent­ly serves 300,000 peo­ple. The pro­gramme pro­vides free med­ica­tion for 11 chron­ic dis­eases—and, more re­cent­ly, men­tal health—through a net­work of 230 phar­ma­cies.