Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Chief Health Officer Brig Gen Md Mominur Rahman Mamun on Thursday expressed his commitment to allocate fund for tobacco control.
On the World No Tobacco Day 2019, a meeting titled 'Tobacco Control Law implementation, progress and future action' was organised by DNCC and Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) at DNCC Gulshan-2 seminar room in the city.
Mamun said he was committed to making the tobacco control programme more dynamic and effective.
Speakers at the meeting talked about findings of several surveys regarding the effects of tobacco-related products. Tobacco is one of the main and preventable causes of premature death and several diseases. According to Tobacco Atlas-2018, tobacco-related diseases are responsible for 1, 61,200 deaths every year.
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) was approved in 2003 to reduce global tobacco use. Bangladesh is the first signatory country of this agreement and in its continuation, Bangladesh enacted the Smoking and Tobacco Products (Control) Act in 2005 and subsequently amended the law in 2013.
According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) 2017, 43 percent people are exposed to second-hand smoking in indoor workplaces. Public transportation (44 per cent), government institutions and buildings (21.6 per cent) and restaurants (49.7 per cent) are being subjected to indirect smoking.
To protect people from indirect smoking, the existing law prohibits smoking at all public places. In order to implement the Tobacco Control Act in Dhaka City, DAM has been implementing various tobacco control activities with Dhaka south and north city corporations since 2013.
DNCC has taken various measures to control tobacco. This discussion meeting was held to review the progress of the DNCC's tobacco-free guideline and implementation of tobacco control law.
The discussion meeting was supported by Campaign for 'Tobacco-Free Kids', and chaired byBrig Gen Mamun. The special guest was Chief Executive Officer of Savar Municipality Saraf Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury.
Assistant Director of DAM Md Mukhlesur Rahman presented the keynote paper. DNCC Health Officer Dr Md Emdadul Haque moderated the meeting.
Secretary of DNCC, the Divisional Heads, Zonal Executives, DNCC Executive Magistrate, Assistant Health Officers of DNCC zone-1,2,3,4, and 5, health officers, Health Inspector of DNCC and anti-tobacco NGOs officials representative took part in the meeting, reports UNB.
