While stating that Malta is a low Tuberculosis incidence country, the Ministry of Health said in a statement that the large portion of TB cases which are present on the islands are imported cases.
24 March commemorates World Tuberculosis Day, and the overall goal of this day is to raise awareness about the burden of TB worldwide, describe the status of TB prevention and explain control efforts.
"Malta has an average notification rate of 7.6 per 100,000 population, over a 15 year period."
"Like other Western European countries, the TB notification and incidence rates in Malta have decreased steadily among the Malta-born population in recent decades. Within this population segment, it occurs mostly in the elderly and is mainly due to the reactivation of old TB."
"A large proportion of TB cases in Malta are imported cases, in people coming from high TB endemic countries. In 2016, there were 51 notified TB cases. Of these, 96% were of foreign origin. Of all TB cases with a known HIV status, 17.4% had TB/HIV co-infection."
Various systems are in place to control TB in Malta. These include the provision of TB treatment, free of charge, to all individuals with active and latent TB residing here.
Other systems include the supervision of treatment by trained care workers, follow-up of TB patients by infectious disease/TB specialists throughout the course of the treatment, screening of all asylum seekers and persons applying for an employment licence who come from high TB endemic countries, and screening of people working/living in high risk environments, amongst others.
According to the World Health Organization, TB is the world's leading infectious disease killer. "It kills more people annually than AIDS or malaria. Globally, 10.4 million people fell ill with TB, and 1.8 million died from the disease in 2015. Over 95% of TB deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries. TB occurs in every part of the world, but the majority of cases are in Asia (61%) and Africa (26%)."
"TB remains a common infection in EU/EEA countries, and is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe. In 2015, 60,195 TB cases were reported in the EU/EEA countries, a notification rate of 11.7 per 100,000 population. Notification rates are decreasing in most countries. Data shows that between 2011 and 2015, new tuberculosis (TB) cases and deaths have declined each year by 4.3% and 8.5% respectively in the 53 countries of the WHO European Region. The decline is encouraging. However, this is not enough to reach the target of TB elimination by 2050 in European low-incidence countries. Thirty per cent of TB cases in the region were of foreign origin."
"TB is a leading killer among people living with HIV, and this deadly combination of TB/HIV co-infection has increased from 5.5% to 9% over the last five years in the WHO European Region. One of the areas of focus of the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union is on HIV, whereby a technical declaration on HIV was outlined by technical experts and was supported by health ministers during the Informal Meeting of Ministers in Malta this week."