The Fiji National University will be declared a Tobacco Free University when the Ministry of Health, in conjunction with World Health Organization, celebrates World No Tobacco Day on May 31.
Each year WHO celebrates World No Tobacco Day, highlighting the health risks associated with tobacco use and advocating for effective policies to reduce consumption.
Tobacco use is the second cause of death globally (after hypertension) and is responsible for killing one in 10 adults worldwide.
The World Health Assembly created World No Tobacco Day in 1987 to draw global attention to the tobacco epidemic and its lethal effects. It provides an opportunity to highlight specific tobacco control messages and to promote adherence to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Fiji has fully complied with the requirements of this treaty with the amended Tobacco Act 1998 into the Tobacco Control Decree 2010.
There has also been a number of tobacco free villages such as community halls on the island of Rotuma today, the village of Naqumu in Macuata, Ba Mission Hospital, Nabukaluka in Naitasiri and Nabila Village in Sigatoka have been declared as tobacco free.
The theme for this year’s celebrations is "tobacco industry interference".
The campaign will focus on the need to expose and counter the tobacco industry's brazen and increasingly aggressive attempts to undermine the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and the serious danger they pose to public health.
For example, in an attempt to halt the adoption of pictorial health warnings on packages of tobacco, the industry recently adopted the novel tactic of suing countries under bilateral investment treaties, claiming that the warnings impinge the companies' attempts to use their legally-registered brands.
In regards to the Tobacco Decree 2010, Fiji is working towards increasing the font size of health warnings on cigarette packets from January 1, 2013. There will also be introduction to pictorial warnings on cigarettes packets.
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