According to the WHO Report, Tobacco kills more than 1.3 million people every year in the South-East Asian region. Concerned at the high consumption, health ministers from 11 countries on Monday signed a declaration pledging to accelerate hard-hitting measures to reduce tobacco use. The region consists of 250 million smokers and nearly the same number of smokeless tobacco users.
The Dili Declaration has been signed in the capital of Timor-Leste where the 68th regional committee meeting of the WHO South-East Asian region began. The Declaration has called governments, UN agencies and partners to accelerate tobacco control. The region accounts for over one-third of the world’s tobacco use.
Implementing the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’s recommendations, countries have increased the pictorial warning on tobacco products. In Nepal the pictorial warning covers 90% and in Thailand 85% of the cigarette packs. The Maldives and Nepal have banned all tobacco advertising.
- Tobacco kills around 6 million people each year. More than 5 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.
- In adults, second-hand smoke causes serious cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including coronary heart disease and lung cancer.
- In infants, it causes sudden death. In pregnant women, it causes low birth weight.
- There are more than 4000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, of which at least 250 are known to be harmful and more than 50 are known to cause cancer.
- Hard-hitting anti-tobacco advertisements and graphic pack warnings – especially those that include pictures – reduce the number of children who begin smoking and increase the number of smokers who quit.
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