Uganda: 17% of Children Start Smoking at Nine - Report

Source from:  Daily Monitor (ug)  04/01/2013

Seventeen per cent of children in Uganda start using tobacco products at nine years, health experts have said.

The principle medical officer, Mental Health and Control of Substance at the Ministry of Health, Dr Sheila Ndyanabangi, said: "While some of these children do smoke, a big per centage of them use tobacco products such as Kuber. This is a smoke free tobacco product which is readily available in supermarkets."

Dr Ndyanabangi explained the 2010 Global Youth Tobacco Survey was done in schools across the country and it shows that most of these children use tobacco products because of peer pressure and the weak laws. "The law is supposed to prohibit minors from accessing Tobacco products, especially cigarrates but it has failed. This is unfortunate because between nine and 15 years, children are very good at experimenting. So if such products are readily available for them to consume, this is why we see such high numbers of tobacco use among minors."

The study indicates that most of these children are boys, but girls have also started picking up. "This was among those in senior two and three."

The 2010 statistics show that 15.6 per cent of the students have ever smoked cigarettes. In an earlier interview, the Executive Director of Mental Health Uganda, Mr Julius Kayiira, said that exposure to tobacco products at an early age puts children at the risk of diseases such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases like coronary heart disease and lung cancer among others. Enditem