Union Minister of State (MoS) for Health Ashwini Choubey today stressed on the need for community participation to encourage people to give up tobacco as he made a strong pitch for accelerating tobacco-control measures for achieving the National Health Policy goals.
Inaugurating a two-day national consultation on accelerating the implementation of tobacco-control measures, Choubey made an appeal for a "Nasha Mukti Abhiyaan" (addiction-free campaign), saying, "Tobacco destroys families and communities. We need to start a nationwide campaign, a people's movement, to combat tobacco use."
Observing that tobacco use was a leading cause of premature, NCD-associated mortality and morbidity and a growing public health challenge, he said many people were still ignorant about tobacco causing cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
"I look forward to the suggestions that will emerge from the two-day national consultation to help us move forward as regards tobacco-control measures," he said.
Anupriya Patel, who is also an MoS, Health, said tobacco posed a major public health challenge in India, adding that a strong political commitment and targeted action over the last decade had contributed to commendable achievements in pushing back the tobacco epidemic.
Highlighting the initiatives of the Health Ministry in this regard, she said with the inclusion of the national "tobacco quitline" number recently, the health warnings were made more impactful, adding that this would give tobacco users access to counselling services.
Patel also stressed on the need to be alert to the threat of new and emerging products and act swiftly and firmly against them.
The consultation will focus on capacity-building of the National Tobacco Control Programme nodal officers.
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