As part of the International Coeliac Day, the Coeliac Association Malta organised two major activities. The first activity was organised on the 15th May and consisted of a tree planting activity. In actual fact one tree was planted to commemorate the International Coeliac Day whilst a second tree was planted on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the foundation of the Coeliac Association Malta.

Members of the Coeliac Association Malta during the Tree planting activity to commemorate the 2009 International Coeliac Day.

Tree Planting activity to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of CA. In the photo are two of teh founding members, the previous chairperson, Mrs Carole Pace Balzan and the present chairperson, Mrs Mary Rose Caruana.

Another event in conjunction with the ICD was an awareness day at main entrance of Mater Dei Hospital. A stand with various posters as well as a number of informative brochures, was set up and these were made available to the general public and health care workers. Particular mention and emphasis was given to the EU funded projects that CAM as a member of AOECS are taking part in.

One of these projects is PreventCD, an FP6 European scientific research project to prevent coeliac disease. The project studies the influence of the dietary history in the prevention of coeliac disease: possibilities of induction of tolerance for gluten in genetic predisposed children for coeliac disease.

The other project is the FP7 funded European project CDMedics.  The objective of CD-MEDICS is to obtain an instrument that will be a low-cost non-invasive intelligent diagnosis system that can be present at point of care, such as a doctors surgery which will bring benefits to patients and healthcare professionals.

 Members of the association were present with free samples of food for the public to taste. This was the second time that such an awareness day was held at Mater Dei and from the feedback received and interest generated it can be considered to have been very successful. Thanks to all those that contributed time and effort.

ICD 2009 Awareness Day at Mater Dei Hospital, 16th May 2009