By Fatou I Touray
The National Professional Officer for Health Promotion at the World Health Organization (WHO) country office has said that the WHO provided technical and financial support to increase public awareness on the national Tobacco Control Act 2016 and the dangers of tobacco use.
Mr Momodou Gassama made the remarks during their recent nation-wide, door-to-door sensitization of restaurant and bar owners on the implementation of the Act by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with WHO.
“This is one of the many initiatives the two institutions have undertaken to fight tobacco use in The Gambia where about 16% of adults and about 10% adolescents aged 13 – 15 years are currently smoking cigarettes. Worryingly, about 8.4% of adolescents aged 12 – 20 years also use shisha,” Mr Gassama asserted.
He said other activities include sensitization and engagement of regional governors and local communities, training of law enforcement agents and production and printing of various communication support materials. A multi-sectoral team of tobacco control experts, under the leadership of the Health Promotion and Education Directorate, are currently deployed in various parts of the country to sensitize the different stakeholders on the dangers of tobacco use as well as soliciting their support for the implementation of the Act.
Meanwhile, WHO is also supporting the Ministry of Health to develop graphic health warnings otherwise known as pictorial health warnings on tobacco packets. Hopefully, once finalized, this will replace the current textual health warnings placed on imported cigarette packets.
“Pictorial health warnings are cost-effective, evidence-based tobacco control interventions recommended by the WHO. Yes, pictorial health warnings work,” Gassama alluded.
Studies have shown that hard-hitting anti-tobacco mass media campaigns and pictorial health warnings discourage children and other vulnerable groups from using tobacco. It has also increase encouraged a good number of tobacco users to quit.
Graphic health warnings can persuade smokers to protect the health of non-smokers by not smoking in their presence as that will increase compliance with smoke-free laws. Studies carried out after the implementation of pictorial health warnings in Brazil, Canada, Singapore and Thailand consistently show an increase of public awareness of the harms from tobacco use.
Over half the world’s population lives in the 91 countries that meet best practice for graphic health warnings, which include warnings in local languages and cover an average of at least half of the front and back of tobacco product packs. It is hoped that The Gambia will soon be among the countries implementing this intervention.
Dilating on the hazards of tobacco use, Mr Gassama said that tobacco kills up to half of its users. He went on: “Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year. More than 7 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.”
Around 80% of the world’s 1.1 billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries.
Second-hand smoke kills
Second-hand smoke fills restaurants, offices or other enclosed spaces when people burn tobacco products such as cigarettes, bidis and water-pipes. There are more than 7000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, of which at least 250 are known to be harmful and at least 69 are known to cause cancer.
There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.
In adults, second-hand smoke causes serious cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including coronary heart disease and lung cancer. In infants, it raises the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. In pregnant women, it causes pregnancy complications and low birth weight.
Almost half of children regularly breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke in public places.
Second-hand smoke causes more than 1.2 million premature deaths per year while 65,000 children die each year from illnesses attributable to second-hand smoke.
Every person should be able to breathe tobacco-smoke-free air. Smoke-free laws protect the health of non-smokers are popular and encourage smokers to quit.
Over 1.6 billion people, or 22% of the world’s population, are protected by comprehensive national smoke-free laws.