A new campaign by the Health Promotion Department urges schoolchildren to cover their mouths when coughing and sneezing to avoid spreading germs.
Hundreds of posters, with the punch-line Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases, will be distributed to all classes in primary schools around the island, Health Promotion Department director Mario Spiteri told The Times.
Dr Spiteri stressed the importance of children covering their mouths when they coughed and sneezed at school, otherwise they would spread droplet-borne infections, especially if the ventilation in a room was not very good.
"This is especially true when you have small children in a room," he said, adding that schoolchildren were very susceptible to getting colds.
He explained that germs remain suspended in the air for some time and can therefore be inhaled by other people.
The department is also urging parents to give children disposable tissues, which can be thrown away after use, instead of handkerchiefs.
Dr Spiteri explained that the change in temperature that usually takes place around this time of the year is traumatic for the immune system and this is the time when a number of people catch colds. "We were lucky to be spared from a flu pandemic until now," he said, adding that Malta was lucky not to have many flu-related deaths.
The idea for the campaign originated from Wilfred Galea, who is the founder of The Synapse, an internet service providing news and resources for the medical profession. Speaking to The Times Dr Galea explained that many medical experts were looking at the most sophisticated medicines but forgetting the basics. "In the olden days parents used to drum into their children's heads the importance of covering their mouths," he said.
Dr Galea said the majority of winter diseases, like coughs, colds and the flu, were caused by viruses which could be prevented most effectively through simple means - washing one's hands and covering one's mouth when coughing and sneezing.
"These basic things should not be forgotten. These simple, inexpensive measures can have a dramatic effect on diseases," he said.