UAE participates in tobacco control conference

The conference in Moscow was sponsored by the World Health Organisation.

The UAE participated in the World Health Organisation’s tobacco control conference in Moscow recently.

The conference was chaired by Dr Weddad Al Maidoor, director of the National Tobacco Control Program in the Ministry of Health; Dr Amal Al Suwaidi, public health specialist in the Ministry of Health; and Amna Al Mandoos, legal researcher at the customs federal authority.

The conference is held biennially to follow up the tasks of the parties who signed the framework convention to help prevent tobacco-related diseases.

Dr Al Maidoor said that applying taxes is one of the most effective ways to influence the demand on tobacco products, as evidenced by the results in South Africa, France, Mexico and Brazil. Those countries have reduced smoking consumption as well as diseases and death rates from raising tobacco taxes.

Over the six-day session, participants at the conference discussed decisions that were presented by a number of countries as well as the reports of the convention general secretariat.

They agreed to apply a new convention to prevent tobacco manufacturing companies from interfering in the governments’ tobacco control policies, and treating alternative tobacco intake methods – such as shisha and e-cigarettes – as they would smoking.

The member states also agreed to set a date for the seventh session, in India, by the end of 2015. Dr Jawad Al Lawati of the GCC tobacco control committee will be the acting director of the next conference.