‘SMOKING THRILLS, TOBACCO KILLS’

By Lumbiwe Mwanza

TOBACCO has remained a global agent of death as its use causes over 40 diseases many of which are fatal, Ministry of Health Acting Chief Non- Communicable Disease Officer Enerst Kakoma has warned.

According to the world health organization by 2030, globally, 75 percent of deaths will be as a result of tobacco use with the low and middle income countries accounting for a lion’s share.

Speaking with The Scoop, Mr. Kakoma said that citizens needed to be more aware of the dangers of Tobacco use with the view to help the country save on health costs.

Mr. Kakoma insisted that the more than 7,000 chemicals being inhaled in cigarette smoke exposed the cigarette smoker to numerous toxins, which included the various tobacco constituents and the products of pyrolysis.

“Exposure to this complex chemical mixture causes immediate adverse physiologic effects shortly after the exposure occurs. The ultimate harm caused by repeated inhalation of the complex mixture of cigarette smoke toxicants at high daily doses, often sustained over the course of many years, causes a broad spectrum of short-term and long-term health effects that affect most major organ systems, ” Mr. Kakoma explained.

He said combustible tobacco products other than cigarettes are also associated with the same sort of chronic disease outcomes associated with cigarette smoking, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.

He insisted that all forms of tobacco use are harmful and that there was no safe level of exposure to tobacco as cigarette smoking was the most common form of tobacco use worldwide.

Meanwhile, centre for primary health care project manager Charity Syatalimi has urged stakeholders in the country not to give up on tobacco use control Laws.

Ms. Syatalimi said that the enactment of the Tobacco Bill will help the country save up on health costs and improve the health status of the people.