Regional Director's message
This year, World No Tobacco Day focuses on “Tobacco and Lung Health”. Our campaign aims to raise awareness of the harmful effects of tobacco use and second-hand exposure to smoke, discourage the use of tobacco in any form, and promote effective policies to reduce tobacco use.
Tobacco threatens our lung health in many ways. It is a major risk factor for respiratory diseases, which are a leading cause of death and suffering among people of all ages, in all the different regions of the world, including our own Eastern Mediterranean Region. Moreover, tobacco smoke contributes to indoor air pollution, which is a major threat to lung health. All the major respiratory diseases are caused by tobacco smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke, but the leading causes of death and disability are lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, tuberculosis and asthma.
In short, tobacco is taking your breath away one way or another. Don’t let it. With just one breath, you open yourself up to thousands of toxins from the tobacco smoke which begin damaging your lungs immediately. You become breathless and your lung function is reduced. The same happens with infants, children and adolescents. During pregnancy, second-hand smoke can lead to reduced lung growth and function. Parents who smoke around their children put them at risk of developing chronic respiratory disorders as they grow older. Adolescents who smoke are more likely to develop chronic respiratory disorders and risk permanently damaging their lungs.
The only solution is to stop tobacco from taking your breath away. Tobacco kills one person every four seconds. Do not be that person and do not contribute to the death toll. I say this because tobacco use in the Eastern Mediterranean Region is alarming. In some of our countries, as many as 57% of men and 29% of women smoke. Smoking among young people is particularly worrying, reaching 42% in boys and 31% in girls. This includes smoking shisha, which is more popular among young people than cigarettes. By 2025, smoking is expected to rise in this Region, contrary to the trend in the rest of the world. This will lead to an escalating epidemic of lung disease regionally.
So let us beat tobacco and improve lung health and the overall health and well-being of people in our Region.
As individuals, you can beat tobacco by kicking the habit and not lighting up in the first place.
As governments, you can beat tobacco by implementing the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and adopting the MPOWER measures to reduce the demand for tobacco. That means: creating smoke-free indoor public places; banning tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; significantly increasing taxes on tobacco products; requiring pictorial health warnings on all tobacco products; providing cessation services to help people quit; and monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies. If you comprehensively implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the MPOWER measures to reduce tobacco use in the Region, you can reduce tobacco use by between 20% to 40% in 5 years, and 56% in 15 years.
As our partners, you can beat tobacco by advocating for the effective enforcement of these policies and helping us engage other stakeholders across different sectors.
We have all made a commitment to reduce tobacco use by 30% by 2025. On this World No Tobacco Day, let us work together to achieve our target, beat tobacco, and stop it from taking our breath away.
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Don’t let tobacco take your breath away - Quit now and say no to second-hand smoke
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