Africa: Rwanda Ranked Least EAC Country on Death Attributable to Tobacco

Source from:  Rwanda News Agency (rw)  04/01/2013

Research findings from the 2012 study indicate that, 7.5% of the Rwandan population are tobacco consumers a fact that ranks Rwanda the least tobacco consumer compared to other EAC countries, RNA has established.

This was revealed on Thursday during the 4th East African Health and scientific conference here in Kigali.

The findings from the research indicate that, 16% of Rwandan men do smoke while 3.6% of women smoke too and the research further shows that, 1.3 billion people worldwide are tobacco consumers and this results into six million annual deaths. By 2030, tobacco will kill over 8 million people worldwide if no measures taken by governments.

Participants at the conference shared views and experience of diverse cultures and ways forward of encouraging all governments to fulfill their obligations by enacting and implement compliant legislation.

The way forward to reduce tobacco consumption, participants raised the issue of taxing all tobacco products and increase tobacco taxes in order to reduce the use and generate revenue for government programs that advance public health.

Poor people smoke more than higher income groups and spend the money that should be used for food and education, and here they pointed out how tobacco mortgages the country's development. 

Habiyaremye Francois, the focal point of tobacco control in the ministry of health says that there's a need for both the trade and health sectors to understand the linkages, interactions and interplay of tobacco control and trade policies.

Vincent Kimoso, the chief executive officer of the international institute for legislative affairs indicates that, all the EAC member states are parties to the WHO framework convention on tobacco control but only Kenya has a comprehensive tobacco control law in place, he went on to say that nothing can be compared to life.

The proportion of death attributable to tobacco varies between 1-2% of all deaths in the EAC countries and Tanzania ranks the highest with 5,935 followed by Kenya with 3,239, Uganda has 1,881, Burundi (918) and Rwanda (378) as the least. Enditem