Twenty-nine new HIV infections were diagnosed in Malta last year, according to a study published this week by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

But while the number appears relatively low, it places Malta as having the ninth-highest incidence of newly diagnosed HIV infections across the whole of the EU’s 27 member States over 2006.

Malta’s corresponding rate of 71.9 cases per million is also higher than the EU27 average of 67 cases per million inhabitants.

Malta began reporting in 2004, since when the incidence of HIV cases diagnosed has increased, most drastically between 2005 and 2006.

Seventeen new cases were diagnosed in 2004, giving Malta a rate of 42.5 per million, compared with 19 new cases in 2005, with a corresponding rate of 47.3 per million.

Of Malta’s 29 new cases last year, 11 were Maltese and 10 were diagnosed in people from sub-Saharan Africa residing in Malta. Four of the new cases involved people from Western Europe, one was from the central and eastern European region and another was of an unknown country of origin. The remaining two were from an unidentified region of origin.

Ten of Malta’s cases were reported, according to the study’s criteria, in “men who have sex with men”, compared with figures of two and five for 2004 and 2005. In 2004 and 2006 two cases involved “injecting drug users”.

Persons acquiring HIV through heterosexual sex, meanwhile, grew from eight in 2004 to 11 in 2005 and to 14 last year.

The ECDC, however, said it estimates the EU’s rates to be higher than reflected in the report, on the basis that experts agree about one-third of Europeans are living with HIV but are unaware of it.

The figures were announced in Tallinn, Estonia this week. The country lead the EU in newly diagnosed infections last year with a staggering 504.2 million cases per million.

The survey, to which national health authorities contribute regularly, in Malta’s case the public Health Department, found the lowest rate in Slovakia, which diagnosed only five cases per million inhabitants last year.

The study did not include figures from Spain or Italy.