15 inmates positive for drugs after 3347 tests in 2021

Jan 12 2022

15 people were found to be positive for drugs after 3,347 drug tests were carried out last year in the Corradino Correctional Facility.

Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri revealed the statistics in parliament in response to a Parliamentary Question tabled by PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami. The latter asked for the number of prisoners found to be positive in a drug test.

The Minister said that this means that only 0.45% of all tests in 2021 found a person to be positive for drugs. ‘After someone tests positive, investigations are conduced to establish the facts and decisions are taken as needed.’

‘Contrary to previous administrations, drugs are not tolerated in the prison, so much so that tests are frequent and every positive is taken seriously. This helped the prison become drug free over the past years’ he added.

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Spanish PM says its time to consider COVID endemic but WHO disagrees

Jan 12 2022

The World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a warning on Tuesday against treating COVID-19 as an endemic illness, like the flu, rather than as a pandemic.

Touting how the spread of the Omicron variant has not yet stabilised, the warning follows comments by Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez last Monday.

Sanchez had stated that it may be time to change how it tracks COVID-19’s evolution to a method more similar to how it follows the flu. This is because ‘lethality has fallen’ said the PM, implying the switch to endemic treatment.

He said that it would be a gradual, cautious process but said that it is time to open the debate ‘at the technical level and at the level of health professionals, but also at the European level.’

However, WHO’s senior emergency officer for Europe Catherine Smallwood said that ‘we still have a huge amount of uncertainty and a. Virus that is evolving quite quickly, imposing new challenges. We are certainly not at the point where we are able to call it endemic.’

The US National Institutes of Health says that a virus (like COVID-19) transitions from pandemic to endemic when a virus does not go extinct but merely drops in prevalence and severity over a long period of time.

It remains to be seen what approaches Spain will take to make this transition from pandemic to endemic treatment. The question also arises whether other countries which have low hospitalisation and death rates as well as high vaccination rates, like Malta, will follow suit.

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Record number of irregular migrants repatriated from Malta in 2021

Jan 11 2022

Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri said that a record number of irregular migrants living in Malta were repatriated in 2021.

Responding to a parliamentary question tabled by MP Beppe Fenech Adami, the Minister revealed that a total of 448 irregular migrants were repatriated, 40 of whom did so voluntarily.

That means that over 400 people were forcibly returned to their home country. Camilleri praised the work being done by the Police and the Returns Unit to repatriate people to their home countries. No details were however given on which countries the people were repatriated to.

Roughly 90% of all repatriations were male. The Minister also gave some insight into the costs behind repatriation.

He revealed that for the first nine months of the year, the government spent €554,800.80 to help return people to their home country. Around €393,477.22 came from EU funds, whereas €161,323.58 came from public coiffeurs.

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Malta 15th best out of 43 countries for IVF treatment policies

Jan 11 2022

In a comparative index, Malta ranked 15th out of 43 European countries with a score of 71% in the Atlas of Fertility Treatment Policies.

Malta has been classified as having a very good score in the same category as England, Sweden, Spain, Finland and Denmark by the atlas which is a joint initiative between Fertility Europe, a lobby group, and the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights.

Malta is ahead of other countries which have been offering IVF services for far longer such as Germany, Italy, Ireland and Cyprus.

The report uses three indicators, the first of which focuses on legislation which includes regulation and available treatments. Malta passed 14 out of the 18 sections after failing to provide PGT testing and strictly anonymous gamete and embryo donation.

In regards to public funding, Malta also scored high as IVF and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection are partially government funded. The island however scored low reading patient’s perspectives as it does not provide state-funded fertility education programmes, with an infertility patients association non-existent.

Malta was still awarded points for providing psychological support however. Health Minister Chris Fearne revealed on Monday that in 2021, 41 pregnancies resulted from IVF. He also said that it was a positive year for the Embryo Protection Authority (EPA), with the number of pregnancies higher than in 2020.

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