World Day on 24th March commemorates the date in 1882 when astounded the scientific community by announcing his discovery of the cause of tuberculosis (TB), the TB bacillus. The overall goal of this day is to raise awareness about the burden of TB worldwide and the status of TB prevention and control efforts.

In the European Region, an estimated 360,000 Europeans developed TB in 2013 – 1, 000 people per day. Although the number of TB cases in this region continued a sustained decline over the last decade, the rates of multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB remain at a very high level in certain high priority countries, which accounted for 85% of all new TB cases in and most of the 38,000 TB-related deaths in 2013. In fact according to the World Health Organization, MDR-TB is still ravaging the European Region, making it the most affected area of the entire world. Only half of MDR-TB patients are found and only half of them are successfully cured.

In many low-incidence countries within the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), TB rates are either stable or going down only very slowly. There are even some countries in which the TB rates are actually going up. Overall in this area, around 65,000 TB cases were reported in 2013. The majority of patients were of foreign-origin.

Malta is a low TB incidence country with an average notification rate of 7.6 per 100,000 population, ranging from 1.8 to 12.8 per 100,000 over the period 2002-2014. Like other Western European countries, the TB notification and incidence rates in Malta have decreased steadily among the Malta- born population in recent decades. In this population it occurs mostly in the elderly, mainly due to reactivation of old TB.

A large proportion of TB cases in Malta are imported cases, in people coming from high TB endemic countries. In 2014, 88% of cases were imported cases. The recent inflow of irregular migration from the African subcontinent since 2002 has contributed significantly to the burden of TB in Malta, resulting in a significant rise in the overall TB rate. Similar trends have been observed in other industrialized countries.

Various systems are in place to control TB in Malta. This includes

 Provision of TB treatment free of charge to all individuals with active and latent TB  Supervision of treatment by trained care workers to make sure that the treatment is taken properly and completed. This is called directly observed therapy (DOT).  Follow-up of TB patients by infectious disease/TB specialists throughout the course of the treatment  Screening of new entrants from high TB endemic countries  Screening of people working/living in high risk environments  Contact tracing and investigation of TB cases, for the early identification of other possible related cases, to prevent transmission to the community  BCG vaccination in high risk children

In 2012, the Ministry for Health also launched a national TB strategy and an action plan to fight TB in Malta. These will provide direction on the prevention and control of TB in Malta.

The theme chosen for World TB day 2015 by the World Health Organization (WHO) is: Reach the three million – Find, treat and cure TB. Worldwide, every year 9 million people get sick with TB and nearly 1.5 million die of TB. Three million people don’t get the care they need for this disease. No one should be left behind in the fight against TB if we want to move towards the bold goal of ending TB.

To mark World TB day 2015, Malta organised a seminar aimed to increase awareness of TB among the health care professionals and people working with groups vulnerable to TB. The theme chosen was: To reach, treat and cure everyone with TB.