Today Malta will join countries around the globe to mark World TB Day through a forum that will discuss the way forward for further improvement of tuberculosis control in Malta.
The main aim of the day - under the slogan I Am Stopping TB - is to increase awareness of the disease, by informing the public on how it is transmitted and how it can be controlled.
Last year 38 cases of tuberculosis were notified in Malta, 24 of which were among foreigners. Nineteen of these cases were among irregular immigrants.
Charmaine Gauci, the head of the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Department, said that since irregular immigrants come from countries where TB is highly endemic, they are screened for the infectious type of the bacteria when they arrive in Malta.
"Any active cases are admitted to a special ward in hospital for treatment until they are no longer infectious."
Moreover, she continued, those working with irregular immigrants are regularly screened, adding that no active cases of TB have been found among staff working with irregular immigrants.
Dr Gauci explained that whenever the health authorities become aware of a TB case, they identify those who were in contact with the patient, screen them and give them treatment in a bid to limit the spread of the disease.
TB is caused by a mycobacteria and most commonly attacks the lungs but can also affect the central nervous system, the lymphatic system, the circulatory system, the genitourinary system, bones, joints and even the skin.
The majority of cases when the disease becomes active are pulmonary TB, with symptoms including chest pain, coughing up blood and a productive cough which lasts more than three weeks. Other symptoms include fever, chills, night sweats, appetite and weight loss, pallor and often a tendency to fatigue. In the other quarter of cases, the infection moves from the lungs causing other complications.
Only active TB is infectious, and it is people with prolonged, frequent or intense contact with an infected person who are at a particularly high risk of becoming infected.
Tuberculosis is a major cause of illness and death worldwide, especially in Asia and Africa. In 2006 1.7 million people around the world died from TB, which affected 9.2 million in the same year.
However, the number of new cases per capita has been falling globally since 2003.