The first cochlear implant to be held in Malta will be performed tomorrow at Mater Dei Hospital, Health Minister Joseph Cassar said this morning.

During such operations, intended to establish hearing in completely deaf people, specialists bypass the ear and implant an electronic device to stimulate the hearing nerve directly.

Tomorrow's procedure will be performed by a British surgeon on a Maltese girl, but other operations will henceforth be performed by Maltese specialists.

Dr Cassar said that five such operations are performed every year abroad on Maltese patients, but the intention was to have some 10 such operations in Malta every year.

He said that such operations were ideally held on patients who were younger than one year, to enable them to acquire speech.