Bolgatanga, Nov. 11, GNA – A total of 75 men die every week through smoking tobacco and tobacco products in Ghana, Dr Mrs Olivia Agyekumwaa Boateng, Head of the Tobacco and Substances of Abuse Department of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has said.
She said information from the Tobacco Atlas Ghana indicated that an estimated number of over 807,600 people smoked cigarettes and other tobacco products such as, cigar, snuff, nicotine gum and nicotine lozenges, among others in Ghana, which had adverse effects on their health.
Globally, she said tobacco killed more than eight million people annually, adding that more than seven million of the deaths were from direct tobacco use and about 1.2 million were due to non-smokers who were exposed to second-hand smoke.
Dr Mrs Boateng was speaking at a regional stakeholders’ meeting on advancing tobacco control enforcement in Ghana organised by the FDA in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region.
According to her, the World Health Organisation (WHO) indicated that more than 80 per cent of 1.3 billion tobacco users globally, lived in low- and middle-income countries where the burden of tobacco-related illness was heaviest.
Dr Mrs Boateng called for continuous engagement and education on the harmful effects of tobacco use and second-hand smoke, so that citizens could insist on their rights to a smoke free environment.
She said there was the need to “Strengthen the regulatory framework to tobacco control through a multi-sectorial approach operating at all regional levels.
“Continuous engagements with stakeholder agencies to ensure compliance to smoke free policies are mandatory prerequisites to the operation of a public facility.”
Dr Mrs Boateng encouraged the citizenry to advocate the amendment of the current law to enable the adoption of a comprehensive smoke free policy based on the available data.
Mr Sebastian Mawuli Hotor, the Upper East Regional Director of the FDA, said the Authority in the Region and across the country had over the years embarked on several public education on the harmful effect of tobacco use.
He said the meeting with the stakeholders was to help enforce the ban on public smoking and to encourage people to desist from smoking and not get initiated into tobacco, which was harmful to their health.
Mr Hotor said the FDA had visited several sectors, including the religious, educational institutions, market places and transport terminals to educate residents in the Region on the harmful effects of tobacco.
He said the meeting offered the stakeholders, drawn from the security agencies, the Ghana Health Service, Ghana Journalists Association, the traditional and religious authorities and the Ghana Tourism Authority among others, the opportunity to draft action plans and map out strategies to ensure public health and safety in the Region.
GNA