Commemoration of World No Tobacco Day: Smokers urged to seek counselling

As part of activities to commemorate this year’s World No Tobacco Day today, the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has urged tobacco users to seek counselling by patronising available cessation service centres nationwide to help them quit the habit.

The Chief Executive Officer of the FDA, Mrs Delese Mimi Darko, said the authority had taken a keen interest in helping tobacco users by referring them to such centres.

The centres include the Addictive Disease centres at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital, the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital and the Valley View Clinic, all in Greater Accra; the Adom Clinic and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital  in Kumasi and the Sunyani and the Ho Regional hospitals.

No Tobacco Day

The World No Tobacco Day is a global event observed on May 31, every year.

This year’s event is on the theme: “Commit to quit” and it is aimed at sensitising the public to the need to quit tobacco-smoking for healthy lives.

Mrs Darko said the FDA was advocating strong tobacco cessation policies, increased access to cessation services, raising awareness and empowering tobacco users to make successful attempts to quit smoking through ‘quit and win initiatives’.

According to her, the continuous enforcement of comprehensive smoke free policies, such as the ban on tobacco advertisement, fees on tobacco product importation, ban on public smoking and the corresponding introduction of punitive fines, had helped to reduce the prevalence of tobacco use in the country.

Situation

This year, the authority has started a public education campaign on anti-tobacco smoking in schools, marketplaces and transport terminals to reiterate the dangers of smoking and the associated health benefits of quitting.

According to Tobacco Atlas Ghana, more than 804,000 adults in the country are estimated to smoke cigarettes and other tobacco products on a daily basis. The incident is prevalent among young people (Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) 2017).

Currently, more than 425, 200 men, 69,200 women and 2,700 boys are estimated to be using and smoking any form of tobacco product, while about 5,000 people are killed by tobacco-caused diseases each year in the country.

The GYTS fact sheet also indicates that the use of shisha had increased among young people in the country.

Every year, tobacco kills more than eight million people globally, with almost seven million of the deaths emanating directly from tobacco use, with around 1.2 million people dying due to exposure to smoke.

Smokers are also exposed to a lethal mixture of more than 7,000 toxic chemicals, including at least 70 known carcinogens that can damage nearly every organ in the human body.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) also estimates that smoking causes over $500 billion in economic damage each year.

COVID-19

The Head of the Tobacco and Substances Abuse Department of the FDA, Dr Mrs Olivia Boateng, said the COVID-19 pandemic had exposed tobacco users to the disease, as hand-to-mouth contact during smoking and the sharing of the mouthpieces of shisha tubes could easily aid the spread of the virus.

She said a review of studies by public health experts convened by WHO on April 29, last year confirmed the higher risk of smokers to COVID-19 complications, along with other respiratory diseases.

The complications were as a result of compromised lung function arising from continuous exposure to tobacco toxins, she said.

According to Dr Boateng, 20 minutes of quitting smoking led to a drop in heart rate, while within 12 hours, the carbon monoxide level in a smoker’s blood would drop to normal.

Also, within two to 12 weeks, blood circulation would improve, with a corresponding increase in lung function, she added.

“Furthermore, in a spate of one to nine months, coughing and shortness of breath decreases, and within five to 15 years, the stroke risk of the smoker is reduced to that of a non-smoker,” she added.

Eventually, the risk of heart disease dropped to normal levels as that of a non-smoker within a period of 15 years, she noted.