Progress in Tobacco control

Why in News?

WHO has recently released its Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2017 - Monitoring Tobacco Use and Prevention Policies.

What are the highlights of the report?

• The report tracks the progress between two rounds of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) in 2009-10 and 2016-17.
• More than half of the top national performers on tobacco control are low- and middle-income countries, showing that progress is possible regardless of economic situation.
• India, Bangladesh and Bhutan are on top of the list of South East Asian countries in terms of positive outcome of tobacco control.
• The prevalence of tobacco use in India has fallen from 34.1% to 28.6% from GATS-1 to GATS-2.
• 11 Indian cities are in the list of 100 best performers globally.

What were the notable measures in this regard?

• MPOWER measures were introduced by WHO in 2007 to assist in the country-level implementation of measures to reduce the demand for tobacco.
• A few countries have adopted new laws making all indoor public places and workplaces smoke-free.
• A few countries have advanced to best-practice level with their tobacco use cessation services including India.
• Adoption of pictorial warning labels on tobacco packaging has yielded positive results.

• With increase in the size of pack warnings to 85% of both front and back panels on all tobacco products, India now has the third largest pack warning label among all countries.

• The National Health Policy, 2017 has set a target of “relative reduction in prevalence of current tobacco use by 15% in 2020 and 30% by 2025”.
• Raising taxes to increase tobacco product prices is one of the most effective and cost-effective means to take forward the progress.

Quick Facts

mCessation programme

• The programme commenced in India in 2015, providing personalised tobacco cessation advice including support using mobile phones.
• It was a joint WHO-International Telecommunication Union initiative with the support of Ministries of Health and Family Welfare and Communication and Information Technology.

Reports and conventions

• The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the first international treaty negotiated under the auspices of WHO, was adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2003.
• The WHO produces two key, complementary reports on global tobacco control

1. the Global Progress Report on the Implementation of the WHO FCTC, which uses self-reported data from member states.
2. the biennial Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic.

Source: The Indian Express