Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Last week, more than 150 public health professionals added to the voice of more than 150 other health professionals who approached Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with the plea to enforce Health Ministry’s two-year-old decision of raising graphic health warning on cigarette packs to 85 percent.

The total number of public health professionals, including doctors, oncologists, paediatricians, cardiologists, pulmonologists, neurologists and dentists who approached the PM, holding charge of the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHSRC), has reached to over 300.

Those who sent a petition to the PM for increasing the percentage of the graphic health warning include members of various health and research facilities across Pakistan, such as the National Alliance for Tobacco Control, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre and other renowned medical institutes and hospitals like the King Edward Medical University, Lahore, Punjab Institute of Cardiology, Lahore, Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, Gulab Devi Postgraduate Medical Institute, Lahore, Allama Iqbal Medical College, Lahore, Sheikh Zayed Medical College and Hospital, Rahim Yar Khan, Ojha Institute of Chest Disease, Karachi, Ayub Medical and Dental College, Abbottabad, Women Medical College, Abbottabad, Health Services Academy, Islamabad, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, National Institute of Child Health, Karachi, Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Karachi, Korangi Medical Centre, TB Control Programme (Sindh), Karachi Medical and Dental College, OMI Hospital, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, and the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.

The decision to increase the size of graphic health warning on cigarette packs was announced by the Minister of State for National Health Services and Regulations Saira Afzal Tarar on February 11, 2015, but it has not been enforced to date and the size of the warning remains 40 percent.

Nadeem Iqbal, CEO of The Network for Consumer Protection, a health rights organisation that is spearheading the campaign for higher graphic health warning, said, “Tarar’s decision… was hailed by national and international health community as it can make a large number of smokers to quit and substantial number of children to not to start smoking.”

Quoting from government statistics, Nadeem said, “Around 73 percent of smokers between 15 and 24 years of age have been noticing health warnings and 33 percent of them are thinking of quitting because of the GHW. The number of these people will increase if size of the GHW is increased to 85 percent.”

“International studies corroborate that tobacco package provides an educational opportunity to educate smokers on the hazards of tobacco,” he added.

“It means that enhanced GHW provides 20 opportunities a day to the Health Ministry to deliver anti-smoking messages at critical junctures – at the point of purchase and the time of smoking. The use of pictorial images enhances the impact of the public health message,” said Nadeem.

Supporting the cause, Dr Tabish Hazir, a renowned paediatrician, said, “Raising GHW is the most cost-effective intervention by the Health Ministry to neutralise the impact of tobacco products and reduce the influence of the tobacco industry.”

“If you smoke while you are pregnant; your baby could be born too early, have a birth defect, or die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Even being around cigarette smoke can cause several health problems for children,” argued Dr Tabish.

Dr Hassan Imtiaz, a neurologist from PIMS, Islamabad, while articulating the perilous outcome of smoking, said, “This is the leading predisposing factor to atherosclerotic diseases like stroke, coronary artery disease, carotid artery stenosis and several malignancies.”

“There is a dangerously increasing trend of smoking in our youth, which can predict a massive surge in the burden of diseases caused by smoking in the future. This is a challenge for our society, to tackle this major havoc to health of our young generation, and this can only be done with proper planning and awareness of communities in the right direction,” he said.

“Raising graphical health warning is certainly one of the most cost-effective way to let people know, whether they be literate or illiterate, about the hazards of smoking,” he said.