Which would you think is the greater public health risk in Malta, bird flu or AIDS?

Most, after the scaremongering campaign last Christmas, would think bird flu. AIDS for us is still only the disease of drug users or very promiscuous gays.

That pattern, which has been true for many years, is changing faster than we think though, but strangely our public health authorities do not appear to want us to notice. We also know from surveys that we, as in we Maltese and Gozitans, are among the least well-informed about AIDS and HIV, and I get the distinct impression the powers that be want it to stay that way.

It gets worse considering we are not being open about the matter and tackling where the infections are coming from, possibly because of fears of fanning racism and worries about diplomatic relations, and a whole host of wrong reasons not to do something which is starting to put public health at risk.

Mind you, we are not alone. Big money and diplomacy always matter more than the public interest. Just like in the UK when the powers that be, scandalously in my view, decided to stop investigating how certain business deals were done with the Saudis for fear of offending the Saudi government.

So it would be OK to investigate a British businessman’s deals with, say, the more easygoing Italians, but not OK to investigate British businessmen’s dealing with Saudis for fear of causing offence and, of course, potentially losing millions of pounds in the process.

Getting back to our health map here, do you remember just over a year ago public health officials coming out and alarming us all about bird flu? There was a double-page interview in a newspaper, I believe, wherein one public health official basically encouraged us all to go out and buy a particular drug.

It was quite a strange thing to do, I thought at the time, but I assume this was a move endorsed by the government, which made it even stranger when the government told us it was stocking up enough anyway.

It persuaded thousands of us to spend Lm20 or much more per family to stock up on something which would have been absolutely no help against bird flu anyway. Malta ended up being apparently the most prepared country on earth against not only a very unlikely risk, but with a drug that doesn’t really help if there is such an outbreak!

The pharmaceutical importers made a lot of money because we were gullible and sadly, I think, the public health authorities encouraged us to be both alarmed and gullible.

Here we are worrying about parts of the sex trade that present themselves as lap dancing clubs or whatever. But the dangers from sex may be coming from other sources, largely from African countries where AIDS is plaguing the populations there.

Once this infection starts taking hold in the general population there will be very little that can be done to stop it. Just sitting back and allowing the infection of the general population to start is negligence of the grossest kind.

So there is an image I can leave you with this Monday morning. The Maltese ostrich with his head buried in the sand, believing in that way he or she is protected against AIDS or even bird flu!

This is a very serious public health issue.

We need to tackle it quickly and spend whatever needs to be spent to ensure that AIDS does not become a scourge here.

All the recognised and legal residents of Malta demand more responsible behaviour from the powers that be on this admittedly very delicate issue.

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