New Delhi: Government has lined up a series of programmes on the World Tobacco Day tomorrow to create awareness against the use of tobacco which kills nearly six million people across world each year.
A run to create awareness among the masses about the ill-effects of tobacco will be flagged off from Nirmal Bhawan in the morning by Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to mark the occasion.
The Health ministry will also release a set of operational guidelines for national tobacco control programme later in the day to help put in place an effective monitoring and execution mechanism for various states adopt with regard to tobacco control.
The World Health Organisation will also give awards to organisations and individuals for their outstanding work on tobacco control to mark the day.
The theme for this year`s `World No Tobacco Day (WNTD)` is `Tobacco Industry Interference` and WHO`s campaign will focus on the need to expose and counter tobacco industry`s brazen and increasingly aggressive attempts to undermine the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) because of the serious danger they pose to public health.
In the evening, an event `Voice of Victims` will also be organised, where victims of tobacco will appeal to policymakers to take measures which would protect future generations from the menace of tobacco. The event is being organized by Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health in collaboration with the Health Ministry.
A street play and an exhibition stall by Manas Foundation, an NGO working in the field of tobacco control, will also be out at Nirman Bhawan to mark the day.
According to Health Ministry officials, the Operational Guidelines for National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP) are aimed at helping states effectively implement the tobacco related laws.
The various activities planned by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare are in collaboration with World Health Organization, Health Fitness Trust, Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health and Manas Foundation.
WHO considers Tobacco use as one of the leading preventable causes of death. The global
tobacco epidemic kills nearly 6 million people each year, of which more than 600,000 are people exposed to second-hand smoke, it says.
PTI
