Lagos, Nigeria -- One of the ways the American Cancer Society fights cancer globally is by tackling the single most preventable cause of death — tobacco. While the Society is dedicated to eliminating cancer everywhere, Africa presents challenges and opportunities unique to all regions. The continent is home to the highest increase in the rate of tobacco use in the developing world. To fight this rise, we are collaborating with five partners as the Africa Tobacco Control Consortium (ATCC) to implement an ambitious tobacco control program in sub-Saharan Africa. The overall goal will be to prevent and reduce tobacco use in the region by implementing proven strategies at the national and local level. To learn more about the Africa Tobacco Control Consortium, please visit the website: africatobaccocontrol.org/en/
World No Tobacco Day Appeal
The ATCC resource portal will showcase World No Tobacco Day activities from throughout the African continent. Organizers are asking colleagues the health arena to take advantage of this African platform by contacting key ATCC staff. Send photos and information to Tosin at [email protected] and [email protected]
World No Tobacco Day Theme 2011
"The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control" as the theme of the next World No Tobacco Day, is today. BThe WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is the world's foremost tobacco control instrument. The first treaty ever negotiated under the auspices of WHO, it represents a signal achievement in the advancement of public health. In force only since 2005, it is already one of the most rapidly and widely embraced treaties in the history of the United Nations, with more than 170 Parties. An evidence-based treaty, it reaffirms the right of all people to the highest standard of health and provides new legal dimensions for cooperation in tobacco control.
World No Tobacco Day 2011 will be designed to highlight the treaty's overall importance, to stress Parties' obligations under the treaty and to promote the essential role of the Conference of the Parties and WHO in supporting countries' efforts to meet those obligations. The Conference of the Parties is the treaty's central organ and governing body.
The world needs the WHO FCTC as much as, if not more than, it did in 1996 when the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an international framework convention on tobacco control. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death. This year, more than 5 million people will die from a tobacco-related heart attack, stroke, cancer, lung ailment or other disease. That does not include the more than 600,000 people – more than a quarter of them children – who will die from exposure to second-hand smoke. The annual death toll from the global epidemic of tobacco use could rise to 8 million by 2030. Having killed 100 million people during the 20th century, tobacco use could kill 1 billion during the 21st century.
As with any other treaty, the WHO FCTC confers legal obligations on its Parties – that is, on the countries (and the European Union) that have formally acceded to it.
Among these obligations are those to:
- Protect public health policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry.
- Adopt price and tax measures to reduce the demand for tobacco.
- Protect people from exposure to tobacco smoke.
- Regulate the contents of tobacco products.
- Regulate tobacco product disclosures.
- Regulate the packaging and labeling of tobacco products.
- Warn people about the dangers of tobacco.
- Ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.
- Offer people help to end their addiction to tobacco.
- Control the illicit trade in tobacco products.
- Ban sales to and by minors.
- Support economically viable alternative to tobacco growing.
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Posted by: Larissa | 16 October 2012 at 09:06 AM
Good write-up. It is good to celebrate something like this - "No tobacco day". Nice sharing and keep posting.
Posted by: az cancer center | 09 June 2011 at 03:05 PM