Speakers at a seminar on World No-Tobacco Day Thursday, organised by the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) unanimously demanded the strict enforcement of the prohibition of smoking and protection of non-smoker ordinance of 2002. Smoking was termed the single largest preventable cause of death in Pakistan. This year’s seminar, organised by the World Health Organization, called attention to the need for creating a smoke-free environment. The US surgeon general’s report highlighted the dangers of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), which causes premature death and several diseases in children and non-smoking adults.
Professor Dr Javaid Khan, Head of the Pulmonary Section at AKUH and President Sindh Pakistan Chest Society, drew attention to multinational tobacco companies who openly flout the ordinance, defying Supreme Court directives and use “all possible means to make the Pakistani public addicted to tobacco”. Professor Khan said that smoking causes over 90 per cent chronic obstructive lung disease cases, the treatment of which is very difficult, where most patients end up with respiratory failure. An AKU study revealed that the majority of ‘shisha’ smokers, usually students from affluent backgrounds, and even their parents perceive the activity as being only mildly tobacco-based and thus not harmful.
Ismailimail 