Reducing Tobacco-Related Deaths

By Ozioma Ubabukoh

African nations seem poised to undergo the highest increase in the rate of tobacco use among developing countries, and nearly 90 per cent of people on the continent, perhaps, remain without meaningful protection from second-hand smoke, according to a new report released at a regional conference recently.
The report, ”Global Voices: Rebutting the Tobacco Industry, Winning Smoke-free Air”, however, tend to point to signs of hope. Several African countries are fighting against the tobacco industry‘s aggressive campaigns to stop public health interventions by putting smoke-free laws into place, probably protecting more than 100 million more people since 2007. This report was published by the Global Smoke-free Partnership.
Recent data suggest that, with current trends, more than half of the region of Africa may double its tobacco consumption within 12 years. And to check this, ”Smoke-free public places are one example of a low-cost and extremely effective intervention that must be implemented now to protect health”, said Dr. Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.
In about less than two years, Kenya and Niger Republic have enacted national smoke-free policies, and South Africa, which has been smoke-free since 2007, according to reports by environment reporters, has been termed to play an important role in the region, demonstrating that smoke-free laws could work in Africa. In what seemed as a first for the region, Mauritius recently passed a law that is close to meeting the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control standards, ranking among the most robust anti-smoking measures in the world.
According to the American Cancer Society monitoring team report, implementation remains a challenge in many places, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Uganda. Even with the ban placed on smoking in public places in Abuja, the nation‘s federal capital, in 2008, by its former minister, Alhaji Aliyu Umar Modibbo, the city is seen as most vulnerable to the campaign of ensuring a smoke-free society.
”In Abuja, Nigeria, for example, 55 per cent of school students are not aware that second-hand smoke is harmful to health, and only 1 per cent of Nigeria‘s population is protected by strong smoke-free laws”, the report said.
It also exposes the tobacco industry‘s tactics to hold back legislation and 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. In Kenya, for instance, it was reported that the tobacco industry issued a legal challenge to a smoke-free law passed by the Parliament. In Zambia equally, the British American Tobacco company has been accused of aiming to dilute proposals for a smoke-free law.
Some people have alleged that the campaign against tobacco smoking, especially in Nigeria, seems to be hindered by some journalists who would rather comment on any other health issue, no matter how agonising, than report or write on the dangers of smoking cigarettes.
According to them, some journalists are of the belief that the best writers are those who smoke and drink. And they have passed this notion to the younger ones planning to take up a career in journalism.
The National Coordinator, Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance, Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi, said this might be responsible for deaths of more journalists from tobacco-related ailments.
Oluwafemi, who is also the Programme Manager, Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth, Nigeria, said, ”For how long are we going to be silent? Several Nigerian journalists and activists are aware that they are dying from cancer of the lungs and tobacco-related ailments, yet they have kept the stick burning. On most occasions, they lead the campaign against smoking, and immediately after that you find them lighting the stick. We have lost the likes of Steve the sleek Kadiri, Momoh Kubanji, Yinka Craig and Beko Ransome Kuti to tobacco smoking.
”Cancer control programme should be linked to tobacco control. Journalists should lead on awareness creation. It is time to be open about our friends, brothers and sisters dieing of tobacco- related cancers. Let‘s support the passage of the national tobacco control Bill.”
It is estimated that in 2010 smoking will claim the lives of six million people worldwide, 72 per cent of whom reside in low and middle-income countries, Nigeria inclusive. If current trends continue, tobacco will kill seven million people annually by 2020 and more than 8 million people annually by 2030.

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Revolutionary case against tobacco use in Nigeria

-Alexander Chiejina

…Tobacco control bill yet to be passed by National Assembly Without a doubt, the health, economic, social, and environmental consequences of tobacco use in Nigeria and the continent are enormous.
Little wonder the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently revealed that African countries are experiencing a 4.3 percent annual increase in the rate of tobacco consumption. This has resulted in an upsurge of lung cancer and related cases which are now prevalent in the society.
It was against this background that experts, at a recent training for health reporters on cancer reporting organised by Journalists Advocacy on Tobacco and Health held recently at Ogba, Lagos urged that the trend should be checked.
Speaking at the event, Akinbode Oluwafemi, programme manager, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (FoEN), noted that tobacco smoking is responsible for more than 85 percent of lung cancers. This, he explained, is because smoking-related cancer accounts for 30 percent of cancer-related deaths, adding that renowned journalists in the country like Steve Kadiri, Yinka Craig, Momoh Kubanji, Tina Onwudinwe and Beko Ransome Kuti lost their lives due to the health hazards associated with the consumption of cigarettes.
“Research findings have it that there are about 599 approved additives in a stick of cigarette. However, cigarette smoke has been proven to contain over 4000 toxic and cancer causing chemicals; carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, to name but a few,” Oluwafemi disclosed. According to him, cigarette advertising, promotion and sponsorship such as ‘Welcome to London, cool feeling’ have made cigarette smoking appealing to a lot of youths, without some of these tobacco companies apprising the public of dangers associated with smoking.
Lending his view, Tosin Orogun, programme manager, Communications and IT, Africa Tobacco Control Regional Initiative (ATCRI), declared that the rise in cigarette smoking in the society is traceable to tobacco companies which increasingly target the developing world as barriers rise and smoking rates fall in more mature markets. “What we (ATCRI) have been trying to do is to facilitate the adoption, implementation and enforcement of effective in-country tobacco control policies, legislation and programs in Nigeria and across the continent,”
Orogun revealed. Already, a 2009 report on the implementation of smoke-free environments aimed at combating Global Tobacco Epidemic shows that five more countries (Djibouti, Egypt, Islamic Republic of Iran, Malaysia and Mauritius) meet the best practices for health warnings on cigarette packages. Three other countries (Israel, Romania and the United Arab Emirates), meanwhile, offer comprehensive help in the drive to eradicate tobacco consumption. In the same vein, only Panama has joined the small group of countries that ban all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, even as more than 90 percent of people lack protection from tobacco industry marketing. Six more countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, the Netherlands and Seychelles) have levied tobacco taxes higher than 75 percent of retail price.
Lastly, of the world’s 100 most populous cities, 22 are smoke-free. Sadly, though, reports from the recently concluded media summit hosted by the American Cancer Society ahead of the AORTIC cancer in Africa, stated that 55 percent of school students are not aware that secondhand smoke is harmful to health, and only 1 percent of Nigeria’s population are protected by strong smoke-free laws. This lays bare the fact that if nothing is done to hastily check public smoking in the country, the rising figures of cancer and other non-communicable diseases may remain.
The bill to ban cigarette smoking in public places which had its public hearing before the National Assembly 19 July this year should quickly be passed into law. A part of the bill which seeks to protect people from secondhand smoke, raise taxes on tobacco, enforce a level of ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship would in the long run, save Nigerians from self- inducing cancer types.

TOBACCO SMOKING - a sure way to contract LUNG CANCER