Medical practitioners have warned that symptoms of Kovid-19 are much worse among smokers, with the epidemic showing an increase in the number of people wanting to quit the habit. “The proportion of people calling and registering to leave is very high, so there has been an increase in the number of people seriously wanting to leave. 90 percent of those who call during Kovid are due to health concerns around the disease, ”said Dr. Pratima Murthy, professor of psychiatry and head of department at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. Dr. Murthy was speaking in a webinar ‘Cessation of Tobacco in India: Policies, Practices and Challenges’, Which highlighted the importance of tobacco cessation policies in the country and looked at the various ways of coping with the challenges faced. The webinar was organized by the Salaam Mumbai Foundation, Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation and LifeFirst on the occasion of World Tobacco Prohibition Day observed on 31 May.
Today is #WorldNoTobaccoDay! The # COVID19 epidemic has caused millions of tobacco users to say they want to leave it. Join dropout communities and commit to leaving today https://t.co/otu6PR8BIp pic.twitter.com/e9QObUQiUL – World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) May 30, 2021 She said: “Our Counselors moved from the center-based counseling to the home in lockdown, so we were able to exploit the technology to make sure that any calls that came on our system were sent to the counselor, and they would send it to their homes. Were able to run from. Also, those who were at home during the lockdown were concerned with their children being exposed to tobacco smoke. It was very encouraging The second thing that happened during the Kovid was that the number of dropouts was actually very high. Three quarters of all who called for quitting said that they had given up and about 40% had quit the job in a month. This is double what we see in pre-Kovid time.
This year, the theme of World Tobacco Prohibition Day is ‘committed to quit’. During the webinar, panelists emphasized how the Kovid-19 epidemic reinforced the commitment to quit (tobacco) among tobacco users. According to the Global Burden of Disease Study, as of 2019, the number of tobacco consumers aged 15–24 (about 2 crore) in India was second. The country has seen the highest increase of young male smokers in this age group since 1990. Globally, the number of smokers rose to 1.1 billion in 2019, with 7.7 million deaths from tobacco smoking. Additional Deputy Director General and Director (EMR) in the Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, Dr. L. Swastikaran said, “Every time we want any information about the number or the result. Termination program, We have to go back to the state government and ask for the number. We think it should be recorded in a digital form, like an MIS. Therefore, we have developed
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