4 Feb, World cancer Day
Jaipur,
Worldwide, today is being celebrated as World Cancer Day, and during this 24
hours, globally 8,640 people will lose their lives due to cancer caused by use
of tobacco and other tobacco products. The data say that one single cigarette
reduces up to 11 minutes of our life, while a full packet of it cause us to
lose three hours 40 minutes of our life. Every hour 114 people are dying due to
use of tobacco and tobacco products.
According to a
2010 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) report, 32% population or 1.5 crore people
in Rajasthan use tobacco in any form, while lakhs of these people die each year
due to tobacco related diseases. Nationwide, 85% men and 20% women in India use
tobacco in any form, which include urban as well as rural women of Rajasthan. According to
the GATS survey, 10 percent girls have accepted that they use to smoke
cigarettes. The World Health Organization report, the Global Tobacco Epidemic
warns us that the tobacco consumption among women is on the rise, and it
includes youths also. When this survey was done in 2010, 35% people were taking
tobacco in any form, and five years later, today, there must be a huge rise in
this data. Remarkably, GATS survey in India is planned this year.
Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi,
Professor Surgical Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, said, “it is a mammoth
task to improve the nutritional status of a nation of one billion people.
However, importantly control on tobacco / areca nut / alcohol / junk food is
well within the reach of our policy makers. While the cancer causing
effects of Tobacco are well known, most are still unaware of harmful effects of
Alcohol, areca nut and obesity. The only way to discourage their usage is to strictly implement
Cigarette and Tobacco Product (COTPA) act that aims to prohibit smoking in
public places, prohibit sale to minors, stop direct and indirect
advertizing.
How serious the issue
is?
In India, every year in India, around one million
new cancer cases are diagnosed and around 600,000 to 700,000 people die from
cancer. In a report of April 2014, around two-fifths (40%) of all cancers in
India are attributable to tobacco use and the economic costs of illness and
premature death due to tobacco consumption exceed combined government and state
expenditure and state expenditure on medical and public health, water supply
and sanitation. (Challenges to effective cancer control in China, India and
Russia, April 2014 – The Lancet Oncology).
Almost 50% of
young smokers, both boys and girls, become victim of tobacco related diseases
leading them to untimely death. Average life of smokers is 22 to 26 percent
less compared to that of non-smokers. Rajasthan daily registers almost 250 new
tobacco consumers. Here, the average age of initiation in tobacco consumption
is 17 years in case of male while it’s only 14 years in females. It’s a very
serious matter that each year almost 72 thousand persons die untimely in
Rajasthan due to tobacco related diseases and leave their family helpless and
destitute.
Global Adult Tobacco Survey – India 2010 report
acknowledges that tobacco use is a biggest preventable cause of premature death and disease. Globally, 1 in each 10
adult deaths is caused by tobacco consumption. Also, globally, 55 lakh people
die each year due to tobacco consumption. And approximately, one fifth of these
deaths occur in India.
In the World Health
Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, 178 countries of
the world had consented to frame their own policy on tobacco control. In 2014,
the WHO appealed these countries to raise the taxes
on tobacco to save lakhs of lives annually.
Dr. Pawan Singhal,
patron of the Voice of Tobacco Victims and Associate Professor of Sawai Man Singh
Hospital, says that the tobacco industry daily unleashes new efforts to attract
youths towards the world of tobacco. With the aim of catch ‘em young, it
projects tobacco products as a synonym of adulthood, modernism, affluence,
classiness and superiority.
Recent initial
researches suggest probability of partial genetic changes among tobacco
consumers which raises not only the vulnerability of that person, but also that
of coming generation towards cancer. With the consumption of tobacco products,
impotency among males are increasing while reproductive capacity among females
decreasing.
Dr. Singhal
said that tobacco increases the risk of mouth, throat, stomach, liver and lungs
cancer. Most of the tobacco related diseases are lungs and blood related,
treatments for which is costly as well as complicated. An Indian Council of
Medical Research (ICMR) study report reveals
that 50% cancer cases in males and 25% cases in females are caused by tobacco
consumption. 90 percent of it is oral cancer. Smokeless tobacco contains more
than 3000 chemical compounds, of which 29 are carcinogenic. Largest number of
oral cancer patients resides in India. Consumption of gutka, chewing tobacco,
pan, and cigarette may cause oral cancer.
Every day, 5500
children in India initiate tobacco consumption and before reaching to the age
of adulthood, they become tobacco addict. Only 3 percent of tobacco consumers
are able to free themselves from tobacco addiction. So, it’s necessary to stop
children from initiation into tobacco consumption.
Globally one
out of each 5 deaths is caused by tobacco and every 8 seconds one person dies
of consumption of tobacco and tobacco products. World Health Organisation
estimates 2.2 billion people consuming tobacco or tobacco products in 2050.
एक टिप्पणी भेजें