Bangladesh worse than Pakistan in tobacco control

Pakistan has set an example for Bangladesh and many other countries to follow in public health with an announcement that it will implement a new pictorial health warning on tobacco packs next month.

Authorities in Bangladesh have been struggling for the past 22 months to introduce a similar warning.

Pakistan’s health ministry on Wednesday said their warning would cover 85 percent of the cigarette pack on both sides from the current 40 percent.

The measure will make Pakistan only the third country in the world after Nepal and India to have enhanced pictorial health warning to 85 percent.

“If Pakistan can, why can’t we?” asked Taifur Rahman, Bangladesh coordinator of the US-based Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

He was one of the members of the committee that drafted the tobacco control law and its implementation rules.

The amended law was passed nearly two years ago in April 2013 with a provision that tobacco companies must print pictorial health warning covering 50 percent on both sides.

Pictorial warning on tobacco packs is regarded as the most effective means of communication with tobacco users.

Researches show a smoker looks at this picture at an average of 7,000 times a year.

Moreover, those who intend to start smoking are discouraged by the warning while it encourages many to quit the habit.

But Bangladesh, a country where more than 45 percent people smoke, could not put the provision into practice as the rules needed for implementation have not been finalised yet.

The law ministry took months to complete their vetting and recently sent those back to the health ministry which is known by the anti-tobacco campaigners as “a heaven” for tobacco industry lobbyists.

Tobacco multinationals dared to meet Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammed Nasim even as the WHO’s convention, which Bangladesh has signed and ratified, does not allow such meeting.

The former health secretary MM Neazuddin also held meeting with them.

The minister later in August last year at a press briefing said being a public representative, he can meet anyone. “But I’ll act according to law”.

Lately, tobacco companies have appointed packaging firms to convince the health ministry that to print such pictorial warning, they need sophisticated machines to import.

After meeting the tobacco lobbyists and packaging companies, the health ministry set a 10-month deadline from the day of issuing the rules to implement the pictorial health warning.

It, however, still remained unclear when the rules will be finalised.

“We are in the worst situation,” CTFK Coordinator Rahman told bdnews24.com.

“Pakistan has showed how quickly pictorial health warning can be implemented. It is frustrating that we are still struggling,” he said.

“In the initial draft we kept six months for implementation of the pictorial health warning from the day of issuing rules. But it was changed after the meeting with the packaging companies.”

“They presented a vague excuse that they don’t have such machines that print pictorial warning,” Rahman said.

“It is like any other printing work and everywhere in the world tobacco industries made the same excuse when a country talked about pictorial health warning. Finally they (industry) had to concede,” he said.

Tobacco use is a major cause of deaths in Bangladesh and other parts of the world.

WHO estimates 57,000 people die of tobacco-related illnesses each year in Bangladesh, while more than 300,000 suffer disabilities every year.

Introducing pictorial health warning is also an obligation for a country like Bangladesh that singed WHO convention, FCTC, on tobacco control.