Tobacco-related deaths continue to soar – PAHO/WHO Rep.

Jun 03, 2017 News

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-as Control Bill continues to hang in the balance

The passage of the long proposed National Tobacco Control Bill is still hanging in the balance in the National Assembly. In the mean time deaths linked to exposure to tobacco smoke continue to mount.

It has been revealed by Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation [PAHO/WHO] Representative, Dr. William Adu-Krow, that 80 percent of premature deaths from tobacco occur in low or middle income countries which face increased challenges to achieving their development goals. Guyana fits neatly into this category of countries.
Dr. Adu-Krow in highlighting the Guyana situation, said that 15.4 per cent of the adult population are current smokers of tobacco with 26.6 per cent of the total smokers being men and 3.3 per cent being women.
Added to this, the Global Youth Tobacco Survey that was conducted here in 2015 among youths between the ages of 13 and 15 found that 14.8 per cent of students – 19 per cent boys and 10.4 per cent of girls – are users of tobacco products.
Dr. Adu-Krow has moreover emphasised that tobacco use is a threat to individuals, regardless of their gender, age and ethnicity and even their cultural or educational background. “It causes suffering, diseases and death leading to impoverished families and national economies. Tobacco use costs national economies enormously through increased health care costs and decreased productivity. It worsens health inequalities and exacerbates poverty, as the poorest people spend less on essentials such as food, education and health care,” Dr. Adu-Krow explained.
Tobacco has therefore been recognised as the single most preventable cause of death in the world today. This notion was particularly emphasised as World No Tobacco Day was commemorated on Wednesday.
World No Tobacco Day is a global campaign inviting everyone – from global leaders to the public – in all countries to focus on the health risks associated with tobacco use and to advocate for effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption.
According to Adu-Krow, tobacco kills nearly seven million people each year, of which more than 600,000 are non-smokers dying from breathing second-hand smoke. And he noted that figure is predicted to increase to more than eight million a year by 2030 if interventions for prevention and control are not intensified.
“As tobacco use continues to rise in many parts of the world, it becomes increasingly more important that Governments working jointly with civil society to implement the mandates of the WHO Framework to protect their citizens from tobacco to educate them about the dangers associated with its use,” said Dr. Adu-Krow.
He did take into consideration that Guyana acceded to the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [FCTC] on September 15, 2005. The WHO FCTC is one designed to guide the global fight against the tobacco epidemic. It is in fact an international Treaty with 180 parties [179 countries and the European Union], according to Dr. Adu-Krow who went on to disclose that “today more than half of the world’s countries, representing nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population [2.8 billion people], have implemented at least one of the WHO FCTC’s most cost-effective measures to the highest level.”
Added to this, he observed that there have been an increasing number of countries that are creating firewalls to ward off interference from the tobacco industry on government tobacco control policy. Guyana, it would seem is still struggling to reach this plateau. This is in light of the fact that despite multiple attempts the draft National Tobacco Control Bill is still just merely a proposal waiting to happen.
Since the drafting of the Bill in 2012, Dr. Adu-Krow said that extensive in-country consultations were conducted to facilitate the preparation of a final document. In 2013, the draft Act was reviewed by the then Attorney General. According to Dr. Adu-Krow, the Attorney General had recommended that additional consultations be conducted with select groups [including cane-cutters, sugar estate workers and indigenous people in the hinterland areas]. This recommendation was supported by PAHO/WHO which conducted the additional activities and the feedback from these guided revisions to the draft Bill.
But after the national elections in 2015, a further review of the Act was done in collaboration with the Ministries of Public Health and Legal Affairs. A subsequent briefing was done on the Bill with the new Ministers of Public Health and the Attorney General.
Further, Dr. Adu-Krow said, several working sessions were conducted with officials from the Ministry of Legal Affairs and during these activities the penalties included in the legislation were reviewed and finalised.
One year ago a presentation on the Bill was conducted for members of Cabinet at a formal meeting. A copy of the Bill was later shared with each member for review. The comments were reviewed and in the cases where additional information was requested, this was provided. Dr. Adu-Krow revealed that “the key recommendations shared by the members of Cabinet were integrated into the draft Act to facilitate finalisation.”
It has since been anticipated Dr. Adu-Krow said, that the Bill would be presented to Parliament in the near future.
Research, according to Dr. Adu-Krow, has shown that regulations on the use of tobacco and tobacco products has reduced the likelihood of individuals beginning to smoke and the percentage of individuals who actually smoke in various countries.

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