Tobacco Double Burdens Strained Economies � Makgalemele
Baboki Kayawe | Monday June 5, 2017 17:09
The assistant minister of Health and Wellness Phillip Makgalemele said tobacco is extremely dangerous to human health and ‘highly damaging to national economies’. Addressing the gathering in Selebi-Phikwe, Makgalemele said the country has since 2002 conducted studies to determine the burden and extent of the problem in order to have targeted interventions.
“The Global Youth Tobacco Survey and the study revealed that the overall prevalence of tobacco use was 14.3%, and boys were significantly more likely than girls to use tobacco,” he said.
Then, around 11% boys smoked compared to four percent for girls. In 2008, a significant increase in prevalence among both sexes was noted- girls were at 10.9% while boys were at 18%. Another survey conducted among adults aged between 25-64 years in 2007 showed that 19.7% of adults were smoking tobacco while 16% of them smoked on daily basis.
“These figures have remained relatively unchanged in the next study conducted in 2014. These studies clearly indicate that Batswana are not left out from this tobacco epidemic,” Makgalemele said.
He further said tobacco use contributes significantly to global mortality, as five percent of all deaths from communicable diseases, and 14% of deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among adults aged 30 years and over are attributable to tobacco use.
“Tobacco-related illnesses and premature mortality impose high productivity costs to the economy, because of sickness and premature death among the workforce,”
This year’s theme is ‘Tobacco: a threat to development’. Remarking at the event, Anti-Tobacco Network (ATN) executive director, Dr Bontle Mbongwe said in 2015 the United Nations member states agreed that the sustainable development goals (SDGs) replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the guide to improving the lives of the world’s people and the earth itself until 2030.
Hence the theme, challenged countries to begin the hard work of translating words into action.
“A first step will be for Governments to establish priorities. The SDGs contain 169 commitments so it is impossible for every Government to give equal weight to each of them,” she said.
She urged Botswana to invest in fighting NCDs, which include these devastating, frightening killers- diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and chronic lung disease.
“For a while, it was thought that NCDs were ‘lifestyle’ diseases of people living in high-income countries. No longer,” she added.
NCDs account for 60% - 35 million of global deaths, but the largest burden – 80% constituting 28 million – falls on low- and middle-income countries such as Botswana, making NCDs a major cause of poverty and an urgent development issue, Mbongwe added again.
“Globally, the impact of NCDs will increase 17% in the next 10 years, 27% in Africa.
Low-income countries, many of which are still grappling with heavy burdens of infectious disease, risk being overwhelmed by this wave of largely preventable NCDs,” she said.
In Botswana NCDs are estimated to account for 31% of all deaths in the country. The most common ones being cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes, Mbongwe further explained.