RP observes May 31 as 'World No Tobacco Day'
Tobacco continues to be a leading global killer.
This was emphasized by Director Lydia Depra-Ramos of the Department of Health in Western Visayas, as she urged the public to observe May 31 as the World No Tobacco Day with the theme "Smoke Free Environment: Dismantling the Myths about Second Hand Smoke."
According to a medical research in 1960, tobacco smoking showed to be strongly linked to heart and lung diseases.
Tobacco contains nicotine, as well as tar. Both substances get deposited in the bronchi and the lungs. The other chemicals found in tobacco are: acetone, ammonia, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide, methane and benzopyrene. These chemicals are the major factors responsible for smoking related diseases like coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, stroke, emphysema, acute bronchitis and cancers of the nose, pharynx, larynx and lungs.
The World Health Organization said that the number of smokers is expected to rise from 1.3 to 1.7 billion by 2005.
WHO said that 100% smoke-free environments are the only proven way to adequately protect the health of all people from the devastating effects of second-hand tobacco smoke.
Second-hand smoke is a smoke exhaled by a smoker and inhaled by other people. Non-smokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke are more at risk because the particles in the exhaled smoke are smaller. They reach deeper into the lungs of the passive smokers.
The non-smoker regularly explosed to second-hand smoke, is prone to specific health risks which include: increased risks of heart disease, lung cancer, increase frequency of respiratory infections and asthmatic bronchitis in infants and children, and chronic irritation of the eyes, nose and throat especially among children.
Director Ramos said R.A. No. 9211 otherwise known as the Tobacco Regulatory Act of 2003, and the DOH's National Tobacco Prevention and Control Program are all all aimed at helping create a smoke-free environment and decrease the number of tobacco related diseases in the country.
"95.48% of local government units in Western Visayas have anti-smoking ordinaces, while functional smoking cessation clinics have been established at Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Rewgional Hospital in Bacolod City and at Buenavista Rural Health Unit in Guiumaras province," Director Ramos concluded.
(PIA)