The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
12 November 2009
With the number of smokers in Africa projected to rise sharply, nearly 90 per cent of the people on the continent are still exposed to high-risk secondary smoke.
This is according to a new report released at an ongoing regional cancer conference in Dar es Salaam.
The report titled: Global Voices: Rebutting the Tobacco Industry, Winning Smoke-free Air, points to signs of hope, though.
A statement released in Dar es Salaam yesterday notes that several African countries were fighting against the tobacco industry's aggressive efforts to stop public health interventions by putting smoke-free laws into place.
The laws, according to the report, have helped to protect more than 100 million more people since 2007. The report was published by the Global Smoke-free Partnership.
"For the first time in history, we have the tools in hand to prevent a pandemic," said Dr Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.
"Recent data suggests that, with current trends, more than half of the region of Africa will double its tobacco consumption within 12 years.
Smoke-free public places are one example of a low-cost and extremely effective intervention that must be implemented now to protect health," he said.
Last year, Kenya and Niger issued national smoke-free policies, and South Africa, which has been smoke-free since March 2007, continues to play an important role in the region, demonstrating that smoke-free laws can work in Africa.
In a first for the region, Mauritius recently passed a law that is close to meeting the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) standards, ranking among the most robust anti-smoking measures in the world.
However, implementation remains a challenge in many places, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Uganda, according to the report.
Obstacles include identifying resources for implementation, and opposition to smoke-free laws by the tobacco industry.
In Abuja, Nigeria, for example, 55 percent of school students are not aware that secondary smoke is harmful to health, and only 1 percent of Nigeria's population is protected by strong smoke-free laws.
The report exposes the tobacco industry's tactics to hold back legislation and to convince African governments that tobacco is important to economic activity; that raising taxes on cigarettes and implementing smoke-free laws will result in revenue and job losses.
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