The control of infectious disease in Malta : a brief historical survey

Abstract

The earliest preventive measures enforced against the entry of infectious disease into the Maltese Islands were adopted at a time when medical men had not yet understood the natural history of various communicable illnesses and unravelled their aetiology and mode of transmission. It was only towards the end of the 19th century that this blind groping for the effective control of infectious diseases gave place to more enlightened and effective preventive actions. Since then Malta has been in the forefront of these advances and has evolved and maintained a very high standard of control against the occurrence of communicable illnesses to the extent that human brucellosis has been practically eliminated and that the most formidable of them - such as plague, smallpox, diphtheria and polio - have been completely eradicated.