This article by kemo Cham, journalist from Gambia who was attending COP3.
Via All Africa.com
Global Alliance On Tobacco Control Gains Momentum
The Daily Observer (Banjul)
NEWS
21 November 2008
Posted to the web 21 November 2008
By Kemo Cham
Durban
The International Convention Centre in Durban, South Africa, is the host of hundreds of delegates from across the globe, converging for the third time to discuss issues surrounding the devastating effect of tobacco and how to control it.
Running from November 17 to November 23, the third session of the Conference of the Parties of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (COP3) is being held in a country that is recognized to have achieved exemplary results in its tobacco control initiative.
South Africa, according to its Health minister, Ms Barbara Hogan, continues to make significant progress in its fight against the use of tobacco. She dedicated the gains to the efforts of civil society organizations, NGOs, and legislators.
She however warned against what she called the "unlimited resources" at the disposal of the influential tobacco industry, which it uses to engage the "best legal minds" in the world to scrutinize anti-tobacco legislations with the view of finding any loopholes to exploit.
According to the WHO World Health Statistics Report (2008), tobacco use is the single largest cause of preventable deaths in the world today. A third to a half of the users of tobacco products become victims of this product. On average, every user of tobacco loses 15 years of living.
Total tobacco attributable deaths from ischaemic heart diseases, cerebrovacular disease (stroke), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other diseases are, in terms of the WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic (2008), projected to rise from 5.4 million in 2004 to 8.3 million in 2020, almost 10% of deaths worldwide.
The saddest thing about the whole thing is that more than 80% of these deaths will occur in developing countries. This is because tobacco companies have found a safe haven in this part of the globe to transport this deadly venture.
There is a unanimous view on the dangers posed by tobacco consumption, although this agreement comes along with divergent views as to how to circumvent its menace. While countries like Brazil acknowledge the need to act against tobacco producers, they are worried about the fate of a substantial portion of their population who make their living from the cultivation of what some anti-tobacco campaigners call the "instrument of death."
Prior to the official opening of the plenary session of the conference, a series of major activities were unveiled. First was the launch of the African Tobacco Control Initiative, with headquarters in Nigeria, on November 16.
This signaled a renewed vigor on the part of Africans to assume a principal role in the fight at the home front. And at the fringes of the plenary sessions of the WHO conference of parties, the so-called "Death Clock" was unveiled, revealing a damning record death of 40194005 people. Cases are said to have been registered since the commencement of the FCA.
It was presided over by the president of the third session of the Conference of the Parties of the WHO Framework Convention, and the South African minister of Health.
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