98% of Maltese children under 16 years of age were in good or very good health, Eurostat figures for 2017 show.

More than 95% of children in the European Union (EU) were considered to be in good or very good general health in 2017, Eurostat figures show. This percentage changes only slightly by age group, from 96.5% for those aged under five, to 95.9% for those aged five to nine and 95.2% for those aged ten to fifteen. The percentage of children whose general health was considered to be bad or very bad was under 1% for all age groups.

The percentage of children aged under five considered to be in good or very good health ranged from 92.4% in Estonia to more than 99% in Bulgaria, Malta, Romania and Italy.

Less than 5% of children in the EU in 2017 were considered to have limitations in activities due to health problems: 3.7% with moderate limitations and 1.2% with severe limitations. The proportion facing each category of limitations in activity increases with age. Among those aged under five, 2.2% had moderate and 0.6% had severe limitations in activities, while for those aged five to nine, the proportions were 4.1% and 1.2% respectively and 4.4% and 1.6% for those aged ten to fifteen.

In 2017, among children under five years of age, the percentage considered to have severe limitations in activity due to health problems was under 1% in all Member States except the United Kingdom (1.1%), Belgium (1.4%), Finland (1.5%) and Austria (1.6%). For moderate limitations in activity there was greater variation between Member States, ranging from less than 1% in Italy (0.2%), Cyprus (0.6%), Malta (0.7%) and Bulgaria (0.9%) to 4.9% in Denmark, 7.8% in Lithuania, 8.6% in Latvia.