Malta Unveils 10-Year Plan to Defeat Silent Killer Diseases – From Pastizzi to Pedal Paths

Valletta’s Upper Barrakka Gardens were unusually busy at dawn this morning, but no-one was queuing for a pastizz. Instead, joggers wove between rows of rainbow-coloured yoga mats while Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela unveiled “Saħħa 2035”, a sweeping ten-year national strategy designed to stop noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) from quietly killing more Maltese people than traffic, crime and COVID-19 combined.

“Today we stop accepting heart attacks and diabetes as inevitable,” Abela told the crowd, flanked by carnival drummers beating out a heart-beat rhythm. “We want a Malta where our grandchildren talk about cancer the way we talk about small-pox – as something we used to fear.”

The numbers are sobering. Latest WHO data show that 92 % of all deaths in Malta are caused by NCDs – chiefly cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung conditions. On an island famous for its 90-year-old nannas who still knead ftira at 5 a.m., the average Maltese man now dies six years earlier than his Italian counterpart across the channel. Obesity rates have tripled since 1990; one in three 11-year-olds is overweight, the highest figure in the EU.

“Culturally, food is love,” explains Charmaine Gauci, Superintendent of Public Health, gesturing to a pop-up stall offering ħobż biż-żejt made with whole-grain bread and a single teaspoon of kunserva. “We’re not asking people to abandon Sunday’s roast or the village festa imqaret. We’re asking them to walk home from the procession instead of taking the car.”

Saħħa 2035 hinges on four pillars: smoke-free generations, active mobility, ultra-processed-food reformulation and mental-health resilience. The headline pledges include:

– Raising the legal smoking age by one year every year, effectively phasing out tobacco sales to anyone born after 2008.
– A € 20 million “green-corridor” fund to connect every town with shaded walking and cycling routes within 1 000 metres of every household.
– Mandatory 20 % salt and sugar cuts in traditional products – yes, even in Twistees and Kinnie – backed by a € 5 million R&D pot for local manufacturers.
– Free annual mental-health check-ups bundled with existing GP visits, recognising the link between anxiety, depression and metabolic disease.

Businesses are already reacting. Farsons, the archipelago’s iconic brewery, announced it will launch a zero-sugar Kinnie variant by 2026 and subsidise bike-to-work schemes. “If we want to sell to Maltese youth in 2040, we’d better keep them alive,” quipped CEO Norman Aquilina.

But the real energy is grassroots. In Birkirkara, parish priest Fr Joe Mifsud has swapped the usual festa fireworks budget for a community kitchen that teaches teenagers to cook qarabaghli spaghetti with half the mince and twice the veg. “Our patron saint never had energy drinks,” he laughs. “We’re going back to seasonal, back to neighbourly.”

Not everyone is clapping. The Malta Chamber of Small Grocers warns that price hikes on cigarettes and “sin-tax” extensions to sugary imqaret could hurt corner shops already battered by supermarket chains. “Reformulation costs money we don’t have,” argues spokesperson Pauline Pace, whose family has sold traditional sweets in Żabbar since 1897. “If Twistees don’t taste like Twistees, tourists won’t buy them.”

Health officials counter that the economic argument is on their side. A 2023 University of Malta study estimated that NCDs cost the country € 476 million annually in lost productivity and care – roughly 3.6 % of GDP. “Preventing one stroke saves enough public funds to hire three teachers,” says economist Prof Gordon Cordina, who helped design a “health dividend” scheme: companies that meet wellness targets will receive payroll tax rebates.

Over the next decade, success will be measured in kilometres of cycle track, yes, but also in stories like that of 65-year-old Rita Camilleri from Gżira. Diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes during the first COVID lockdown, she joined a pilot walking group in Ta’ Qali. “I lost 18 kilos and gained a husband,” she giggles, nodding to Carmel, a retired bus driver she met on the trail. They now volunteer as “walk leaders” for Saħħa 2035, guiding pensioners through Mdina’s lamp-lit bastions every Tuesday evening.

Back in Valletta, as the sun climbs above the harbour and cruise horns drown out the last drum beat, Minister Abela circles back to the crowd. “We are not importing a Nordic model,” he insists. “We are building a Maltese recipe for health: a pinch of discipline, a dollop of community spirit, and the stubborn joy of living longer to argue about politics in the village bar.”

The pastizzeria across the square has already swapped its usual flyer for a sticker that reads, “Ask for whole-wheat pastizzi – your nonna will still love you.” If Saħħa 2035 works, that might be the most revolutionary thing to happen to Malta since the Knights landed.