Chittagong civil surgeon office and YPSA jointly observed World No Tobacco Day 2013 with the theme “Ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship”.
“Mobile court will be conducted in different places at Chittagong soon to execute ‘Smoking and Tobacco Products Use (control) Bill-2013’” said Mr. Md. Abdul Mannan, Deputy Commissioner (DC), Chittagong in a discussion meeting held at the conference hall of Civil Surgeon Office, Chittagong on June 2, 2013.
Dr. Md. Abu Tayab, Civil Surgeon presided the meeting while Ms. Nasim Banu Shaymali, Team leader, Smoke free project, YPSA presented the keynote on “Significance of World No Tobacco day’13, ban tobacco advertisements, promotion and sponsorship, harms of tobacco use and tobacco control amendment bill 2013”. Dr. Md. Rafiq Uddin, Deputy Civil Surgeon and Md. Mahbubur Rahman, Director (SDP), YPSA spoke in the meeting. Different NGOs representative, Government officials, Taskforce members and Coalition members participated in the meeting.
In Bangladesh, at least 57 thousand people die each year from eight leading tobacco related diseases. In addition, 382 thousand people become disabled each year from tobacco related illnesses. The amount of health costs attributable to tobacco related illnesses suffered by 1.2 million people each year is enormous.
Dr. Abu Tayab said, “Along with the tobacco control act, increasing tobacco tax, banning tobacco selling to children and raising awareness has to be done in order to control tobacco uses”. .
