Geneve/New York, December 8 – The World Health Organization has launched a global campaign to support over 100 million tobacco users who have tried to quit because they are at higher risk of catching Covid-19.
The year-long global campaign for World No Tobacco Day 2021 – “Commit to Quit” was launched with a new WHO Quit Challenge on WhatsApp and the publication “More than 100 reasons to quit tobacco” were being released to mark the start of the campaign.
“Smoking kills 8 million people a year, but if users need more motivation to kick the habit, the pandemic provides the right incentive,” said WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
An estimated 780 million tobacco users around the world said they wanted to quit but only 30 per cent of them have had access to health services and resources that can help them to do so.
When the pandemic struck in early 2020, WHO released a scientific brief warning that tobacco users were at higher risk of developing severe disease and death from Covid-19. The brief also warned that tobacco represented a major risk factor for noncommunicable diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease and diabetes, and people living with those conditions are more vulnerable to Covid-19.
“Millions of people worldwide want to quit tobacco – we must seize this opportunity and invest in services to help them be successful, while we urge everyone to divest from the tobacco industry and their interests,” said Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of Health Promotion at WHO.
The international health organization said it is working to create digital communities where people can find social support they need to quit using tobacco and the focus will be on countries with huge population that are tobacco users. WHO said it has received support for its initiative from private sector companies such as Allen Carr’s Easyway, Amazon Web Services, Cipla, Facebook and WhatsApp, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Praekelt, and Soul Machines.
WHO has called on all governments to ensure their citizens have access to brief advice, toll-free quit lines, mobile and digital cessation services, nicotine replacement therapies and other tools that are proven to help people quit. Strong cessation services improve health, save lives and save money.
More than 100 reasons to quit tobacco: https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/more-than-100-reasons-to-quit-tobacco/
Digital Health Worker: https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/using-ai-to-quit-tobacco
WHO Quit Challenge on WhatsApp: https://wa.me/41798931892?text=tobacco
The “Commit To Quit” 2021 campaign is focused on the following countries: Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, Germany, Nigeria, Brazil, Jordan, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Suriname, Turkey, Russia, Vietnam, Mexico, the United States and Ukraine. (united nations correspondent journalists – united nations journalism articles)
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