Network against tobacco formed

A tobacco control research network was launched in Bangladesh on Thursday to fight the tobacco menace by marshalling evidence of its hazards.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 26 Sept 2013, 06:30 PM
Updated : 26 Sept 2013, 06:38 PM

A nine-member executive committee was formed in a function in Dhaka to run the Bangladesh Tobacco Control Research Network over the next two years.

New York’s Bloomberg Philanthropies would fund the network where institutions and individuals could enroll as members provided they had no link with the tobacco industry.

President Prof Sohel Reza Choudhury, an epidemiologist at the National Heart Foundation Hospital, said their working strategy would be formulated within the next couple of weeks.

The Network would offer grants to individuals and institutions to take up tobacco-control research, he said.

Dr Joanna Cohen, Director of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Institute for Global Tobacco Control through which Bloomberg would fund the network, said ‘strong and vigorous’ evidence were the ‘basis’ of curbs on tobacco.

Mohammad Shahjahan, Chief Executive Officer of the Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs that played the lead role in the Network’s formation, said a platform was needed to back tobacco-control research.

Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Health Md Shafiqul Islam Laskar praised the initiative, stressing concerted efforts to fight tobacco industries.

With 43.3 percent adults either smoking or chewing tobacco, such products in Bangladesh are among the cheapest in the world. They kill about 57,000 people and affect over 350,000 with various ailments.

The government recently amended the tobacco control Act to make it stronger, but its implementation is still a matter of considerable challenge.

Vice-chancellor of the Independent University Prof M Omar Rahman said everyone had to join hands to fight against the tobacco industry.

“It’s a tough battle,” he said, citing his own campus experience, where, he said, he got reports every day about students, faculties, and the staff smoking, despite a ban on tobacco within the institution area.