Public urged to avail of free blood pressure tests

Adults who haven’t had their blood pressure checked in the past year are being urged to do so now as part of a global initiative to screen 25m people in a single month.

One of the country’s foremost experts on hypertension said up to 30,000 people in Ireland are not aware they have high blood pressure.

Eoin O’Brien, adjunct professor of Molecular Pharmacology at UCD’s Conway Institute, said the International Society of Hypertension and the World Hypertension League were so concerned with the rate of increase in high blood pressure globally, that they decided to spend a month rather than a single day raising awareness and encouraging screening.