Communicable disease control strategy for Malta

Abstract

Communicable diseases remain one of the highest priorities for public health both nationally and internationally. Effective surveillance is the cornerstone to the prevention and control of communicable diseases. Surveillance is carried out by the Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Unit within the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Directorate and provides a mechanism for the co-ordination of national communicable disease surveillance activities in co operation with the clinical and laboratory services and other departments and entities. There is however, a need to strengthen the coordination and planning of surveillance activities at the national level, and to enhance the strategic plan for responding to the priority public health problems identified. This revised National Communicable Diseases Control Strategy is an initiative of the Ministry for Health. The strategy sets out to: describe the scope and nature of the threat posed by infectious diseases to the health of the population of Malta and establish the priorities for action to combat the present as well as possible future threat posed by infectious diseases. In the development of this strategy, the experience and opinion of various experts were incorporated. This strongly supports the need for a broad based approach to these threats. The Strategy emphasizes the need for the co-ordination of national surveillance for the planning and prioritisation of interventions, the optimal use of laboratory science in communicable disease management and the availability of an effective response capacity for outbreaks of national significance.