Speakers expressed concern over the fact that tobacco use in Bangladesh resulted in more than 1,26,000 deaths in 2018, which is more than four times the number of deaths (29,000) during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.
They made these observations on Wednesday at a "Research Findings Dissemination Conference" at the CIRDAP International Conference Center in Dhaka, using data from Reuters (2022) and Tobacco Atlas (2020), according to a press release of Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs Tobacco Control Programme, says a press release.
The conference was informed that despite tobacco use continuing to be one of the major causes of death, very little attention is being paid to the preventable cause of this problem, even among lawmakers. This is due to their blatant ignorance of the governments goal of having a tobacco-free Bangladesh by 2040.
During the inaugural session, Professor Syed Modasser Ali, former advisor to the prime minister, was the chief guest. The main guest at the closing session was Md Ziauddin, joint secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfares Health Services Division.
Economist Salehuddin Ahmed, former governor of the Bangladesh Bank and president of the Executive Board of the BCCP, presided over the inaugural programme.
To facilitate materialising the governments vision, the BCCP, in collaboration with the Bangladesh Tobacco Control Research Network (BTCRN) and Institute for Global Tobacco Control, Baltimore, USA, is actively working through implementing the Tobacco Control Policy Research Grant Program since 2013.
Maheen Malik, regional director, CTFK; Prof Nawzia Yasmin, president, BTCRN; Md Akhteruzzaman, coordinator, NTCC; Prof Shah Monir Hossain, former director general, DGHS; Bardan Jung Rana, World Health Organization, Bangladesh; Sejal Saraf, Consultant-South Asia, IGTC; representatives from Bloomberg Initiative Partners; and Mohammad Shahjahan, director and CEO, BCCP were present.
A notable study titled "Parliamentary Oversight on Tobacco Control in Bangladesh", revealed a concerning gap in parliamentary engagement, with minimal (0.08 percent) discussions on question-answer sessions on tobacco control during the last parliament tenure (2019-2023).
This poses the question whether the Members of Parliament (MPs) are adequately taking initiatives to reduce tobacco consumption, including formulation of tobacco control policies and roadmap.
The other seven studies also brought noteworthy findings in different tobacco control concerns including e-cigarette distribution and trends, healthcare worker practices in tobacco cessation, enforcement challenges of tobacco control law at public transportation, the potential of a model on tobacco quit-line service, influence of designated smoking area (DSA) on adolescents and the tax evasion strategies of smokeless tobacco industry.
About 200 participants, including the officials from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, other government and non-government organisations, representatives from development partners, faculties and students from different universities, representatives from media agencies and other stakeholders attended the conference for a productive exchange.
