ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Today is the international day to combat one of the biggest threats to public health – smoking. Smoking kills more than 6 million people worldwide every year, including more than 5 million tobacco users and more than 600,000 non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that “approximately 1 person dies from a tobacco-caused disease every 6 seconds.” It is a major cause of non-communicable diseases, and is preventable. Smoking is a serious concern in Iraq where there is high prevalence of the habit. The WHO estimates that around 20% of the population use tobacco products. The rate of smoking is much higher among men than women in the country. Smoking is pervasive throughout Kurdish society and even health care professionals lack training on stopping smoking. A recent study out of Sulaimaniya, published by the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health on March 6, found that more than a quarter of doctors and dentists in Sulaimaniya smoke. “Incidence of smoking among physicians and dentists was 26.5%, with a significantly higher rate among male compared to female health care professionals.” And healthcare professionals, whose job it is to be behavioural models and promote the health of their patients, receive little anti-smoking training, say the study’s authors, Darya Saeed Abdulateef, Azheen Jamil Ali, Darwn Saeed Abdulateef, and M.I. Glad Mohesh, who found that just “7.3% of health care professionals surveyed received formal training on smoking cessation.” On World No Tobacco Day, May 31st, the WHO is calling on countries to legislate for plain packaging of tobacco products. “Plain packaging reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products. It kills the glamour, which is appropriate for a product that kills people,” says WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan in a statement on the organization’s website. “It restricts tobacco advertising and promotion. It limits misleading packaging and labelling. And it increases the effectiveness of health warnings.” Rudaw is now running a program to help people quit smoking and track their health improvements after quitting. The app GoodByeSmoking is available now.
