World Lung Foundation congratulates Bangladesh on anti second-hand smoke campaign

The World Lung Foundation has congratulated Bangladesh government on running a “powerful” media campaign showing how second-hand smoking harms children.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 23 July 2015, 05:20 PM
Updated : 23 July 2015, 05:20 PM

The campaign ‘tobacco is eating your baby alive’, broadcast in national TV and radio stations and featured on posters around the country, was designed to encourage quitting and support for anti-smoking law.
 
Based on previous experiences, the New York-based Lung Foundation says this campaign “may encourage millions of quit attempts”.
 
“We congratulate the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the National Tobacco Control Cell (Bangladesh) on running this hard-hitting campaign,” the Foundation’s Senior Vice President Policy and Communications Sandra Mullin said in a statement.
 
It is estimated that as many as 73 million Bangladeshis aged between 15 and 64 years may have been exposed to the campaign, which was implemented by the health ministry with support from the Lung Foundation.
 
More than 7.38 million smokers tried to quit after seeing an earlier WLF-supported government campaign and a further 4.34 million pledged to quit in the next 12 months.
 
According to The Tobacco Atlas, second-hand smoke (SHS) increases the risks of contracting lung cancer by 30 percent and coronary heart disease by 25 percent.
 
Exposure to second-hand smoking killed more than 600,000 non-smokers globally in 2010 from causes of death including ischemic heart disease, lower respiratory infections, asthma, and lung cancers.
 
The Tobacco Atlas notes that 44.4 percent of men and 1.8 percent of women in Bangladesh smoke tobacco, while the majority of SHS-related deaths occur in women, 47 percent, and children, 28 percent.

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