KUWAIT CITY, June 1: On the occasion of ‘World No Tobacco Day’, Ministry of Health recently held an event under the auspices of Minister of Health Dr Ali Al-Obeidi, reports Al-Qabas daily.
In an interview with Dr Al-Obeidi, he said the ministry along with Kuwait’s Anti-Smoking National Program presided over by the Assistant Undersecretary for Public Affairs of Health Ministry Dr Qais Al-Dawsari, organized this event.
He revealed that the Ministry established this program to work on achievements such as to enforce a no-smoking law in public facilities of Kuwait, to raise customs tax to 100 percent for tobacco and its products, to ensure the offices of Health Ministry boast of a no-smoking environment, to coordinate with Education Ministry to launch an anti-smoking program in schools and so on.
He added that the Anti-Smoking Program Committee will coordinate with the concerned departments to enforce the law to ban public smoking and will eventually coordinate with other GCC countries to combat public smoking in the region.
He stressed that there will be training programs for doctors working in the concerned field and that the Program is working on setting up anti-smoking clinics in all Kuwait provinces.
Furthermore, he pointed out that several health campaigns were held to spread awareness among people about the negative effects of tobacco, adding that the first one was in 2009 and the campaign in 2010 under the slogan ‘Life without Smoking is Good’ won the first price in the Middle East.
Source: Arab Times
