08 May 2017

The Minister of Health and Wellness,  Ms Dorcus Makgato, says tobacco must be stamped out before it afflicted more people.

Ms Makgato said this at the University of Botswana Health Fair and Walk, which was Organised by the 2nd year, SGM students.

She said tobacco was universally accepted as a social evil, adding that in many ways, tobacco and poverty were part of the same vicious cycle.

“Even more predictable in Africa, 44 per cent of people are below the age of 15 years and as these children and young people grow into adults they will carry with them the risks accumulated from early life spent in increasingly unhealthy cities, adopting risk behaviors and burdened by the metabolic legacy of under-nutrition in their childhood”, she said.

Ms Makgato further said “unless we act now, in the middle age these young people will become a health-poor generation, with early onset of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer and chronic respiratory disease, hitting adults in their most productive years,” adding that this would have a catastrophic impact on the economy and already weakened health systems.

“Tobacco has a significant role in causing Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) , it kills about 6 million people a year, part of the barely imaginable loss of 38 million lives every year from NCDs”, she said.

She said, currently in the country, the probability of dying between the ages of 30 and 70 years from four main NCDs was 21 per cent, with tobacco being among the major risk factors.

She said, her ministry however could not fight NCDs alone or the tobacco wars alone, adding that managing the growing burden NCDs was especially challenging for the already overburdened health system where the battle against preventable communicable diseases and life expectancy was on-going.

“To curb the NCD epidemic therefore requires new ways of working together. Today’s event brings hope that true partnerships in health services delivery are possible,” she said.

With the event held under the theme, ‘Tobacco – a threat to sustainable development goals’,  Ms Makgato said she could not overemphasise the importance of  the event as it set a tone for the upcoming World No Tobacco Day Commemoration.

Ms Makgato said she was pleased about the university’s commitment to lead initiatives by engaging the community in which it existed.

For his part, the World Health Organisation  (WHO) representative, Dr Martins Ovberedjo said the WHO Framework on Tobacco Control focused on curbing the demand and supply of tobacco.

“It provides technical guidance in all respects of  tobacco control through strategies such as the manpower package which encompasses policies, services, public education as well as the monitoring of tobacco control interventions,”he said. BOPA