On Thursday, World No Tobacco Day will be observed in the country and elsewhere across the globe, highlighting health and other risks associated with tobacco use,while advocating for effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption.
The theme of this year's day is “Tobacco attacks heart: Stay away, save lives.”
The theme demonstrates the link between tobacco and heart and other cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including strokes. Combined, these are the world's leading causes of death.
The theme also considers feasible actions and measures that key audiences, including governments and the public, can take to reduce the risks to heart health posed by tobacco.
Every year, the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners mark the World No Tobacco Day on May 31.
World No Tobacco Day 2018 coincides with a range of global initiatives and opportunities aimed at addressing the tobacco epidemic and its impact on public health, particularly its causingthe death and suffering of millions of people globally. These actions include the WHO-supported Global Hearts and RESOLVE initiatives, which aim to reduce cardiovascular disease deaths and improve care, coinciding with the third United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of non communicable chronic diseases, or NCDs, being held in 2018.
According to WHO, the global tobacco epidemic kills over seven million people each year, of which close to 900,000 are non-smokers who die from breathing second-hand smoke.
Nearly 80 percent of the more than one billion smokers worldwide live in low and middle-income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related illnesses and deaths is heaviest.
Various anti-tobacco organisations have chalked out elaborate programs for the occasion.
President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have issued separate messages highlighting the significance of the day.
