The fight against smoking in the world is growing, according to the WHO

Photo Archives / Reuters

AFP

Wednesday, 19 July, 2017 13:54

UPDATE
Wednesday, 19 July, 2017 13:54

Look at this article

The non-smoking policies have significantly increased over the past ten years, welcomes the world health Organization (WHO), while lamenting the persistence of the tobacco industry to interfere with tobacco control, responsible for over seven million deaths each year.

More and more countries have taken steps to discourage the use of tobacco products, like warnings on cigarette packages, advertising bans, or the introduction of non-smoking seats, ” says this report on the global tobacco epidemic presented on Wednesday to the united nations in New York.

Today, 4.7 billion people around can benefit from at least a measure of control anti-tobacco, is four times more than in 2007.

“Strategies for implementing such measures have saved millions of people from early death”, according to the WHO which has established, to this effect, the MPOWER package in 2008 to encourage the government interventions against tobacco.

MPOWER was launched in connection with the framework convention of the WHO to control the epidemic exacerbated by globalization by implementing six strategies to discourage tobacco use.

It is control of the consumption of these products and prevention policies, protecting the public from second hand smoke, aid to stop smoking, warnings against the dangers of tobacco, enforce bans on advertising, promotion and sponsorship and raising taxes.

One of every ten deaths

“The governments in the world should not lose time to incorporate all the provisions of the WHO convention on tobacco control in their national programmes for the fight against smoking,” insisted before the united Nations Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO.

“They must also repress the illicit market in tobacco products, which exacerbates the global tobacco epidemic and its health consequences and socio-economic impacts”, he judged.

“By working together,” said Dr Tedros, “countries can prevent millions of deaths each year, ( … ), saving at the same time billions of dollars annually in medical care”.

This latest WHO report, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, which brings together the various charitable activities of the billionaire and former New York city mayor, Michael Bloomberg, focuses on the monitoring of tobacco use and prevention policies.

“One of every ten deaths worldwide is caused by tobacco, but we can change this with the measures of struggle against smoking of the program, MPOWER, which has proven to be very effective”, stressed Michael Bloomberg, the ambassador of the WHO for non-communicable diseases.

“Progress has been made anywhere in the world as shown in this report, which shows that it is possible for the country to defeat tobacco smoking”, he added.

The authors found that a third of the countries in the world have implemented for extended systems to control the consumption of tobacco.

Counter the tactics of the industry

Even if this represents a clear progress compared to ten years earlier, when only a quarter of the nations had implemented such measures, governments must still do more in this area by devoting more resources or by erecting in national priorities, leading WHO.

The report also shows that eight countries, including five low-and middle income, have already deployed at least four of the six strategies of the program.

These are Brazil, Iran, Ireland, Madagascar, Malta, Panama, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.

WHO also insists on the importance of monitoring and to address systematically the tactics of the tobacco industry.

They are to exaggerate the economic importance of this activity, to discredit the science showing the harmful effects of tobacco or to initiate legal actions to intimidate governments.

Reduce the consumption of tobacco is an essential part of the sustainable development Agenda to 2030, the united Nations established in 2015.

One of the key objectives is to reduce by one third the number of premature deaths resulting from non-communicable diseases (cardio-vascular diseases, pulmonary, cancer, and diabetes) in which smoking is an important factor.

More than 80% of the 40 million premature deaths per year occur in the poorest countries and income intermediary, according to the WHO.