E-cigarettes import, export should be banned: Meerjady Sabrina Flora
Around 37.8 million adults in the country use tobacco products. While 38.4 million adults are exposed to secondhand smoke in public places and public transportation, including workplaces. And about 160,000 people die every year from various tobacco-related diseases
The use of e-cigarettes is alarmingly increasing among the youth, posing a threat to the country's health system, said Prof Dr Meerjady Sabrina Flora, director of the National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM).
She made the remark today while addressing a seminar on Tobacco and Non-Communicable Diseases: Importance of Tobacco Control Act in line with the World Health Organization's (WHO) FCTC for protecting public health, at the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) in the capital.
Dr Sabrina Flora said, "The use of tobacco is also increasing among women. They are also getting addicted to e-cigarettes. Therefore, it is necessary to immediately ban the import and export of harmful products like e-cigarettes to protect the public health of the youth. For this, the existing tobacco control law needs to be amended in light of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)."
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
The seminar, jointly organised by the National Heart Foundation of Bangladesh and the Public Health Association of Bangladesh (PHAB), was presented by Professor Sohel Reza Chowdhury, head of the Department of Epidemiology and Research at the National Heart Foundation Hospital and Research Institute, and Dr Nizam Uddin Ahmed, organisational secretary of PHAB.
They said that 37.8 million adults in the country use tobacco products. While 38.4 million adults are exposed to secondhand smoke in public places and public transportation, including workplaces. And about 160,000 people die every year from various tobacco-related diseases.
At the seminar, PHAB President Dr Shah Monir Hossain said that Bangladesh is at the top in terms of tobacco use in South Asia. It is necessary to amend the existing tobacco control law to build a tobacco-free Bangladesh by 2040, as promised by the prime minister.
The health ministry has taken the initiative to amend six sections of the existing law. These are- abolition of sections 4 and 7 of the law, i.e., prohibition of designated smoking areas in all public places and public transportation; prohibition of display of tobacco products at tobacco product sales outlets; complete prohibition of any type of corporate social responsibility (CSR) program of tobacco companies; increasing the size of pictorial health warnings on tobacco product packets or boxes from 50% to 90%; prohibition of the sale of loose, unpackaged and smokeless tobacco products; and complete prohibition of all emerging tobacco products, including e-cigarettes.
