DOHA A NEW tobacco law, with much harsher penalties for violators, will be implemented in Qatar soon, Dr Mohammed al Thani, Public Health Director at the Supreme Council of Health (SCH) said here on Tuesday.
Dr al Thani made this announcement at a press conference to launch the 1st Global Adult Tobacco Survey in Qatar, which will be conducted to 8,000 (including 4,000 Qataris and 4,000 Non-Qataris) male and female residents aged 15 years and above. However, the survey does not include labourers and domestic workers in the country.
Speaking about the new law, Dr al Thani said, “The Cabinet will soon pass a new tobacco law that includes harsher penalties and stricter regulations to prohibit smoking in certain areas and gives greater support to health inspectors entrusted with enforcing the law.” He added, “In the new law, the health inspectors and volunteers will have more authority to implement nosmoking policies and bring the offenders to task for their violations”.
He said plans are also afoot to increase the number of tobacco cessation clinics in Qatar. Currently, there are three tobacco cessation clinics operating in government health institutes here, including two at the primary health care centres and one at the Hamad General Hospital.
Meanwhile, the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, which will be carried out from March 6 to May 6, is a collaborative effort between the SCH, Qatar Statistics Authority, Regional Office of World Health Organisation, and the US based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
Dr al Thani said that the survey will reflect the level of tobacco consumption, smoking cessation services, passive smoking, trends, behaviour and perceptions towards tobacco consumption, economics of tobacco (rate of exchange to buy tobacco), and exposure to media and advertising by tobacco companies in Qatar.
“This will help us design, implement, and evaluate interventions for tobacco control and prepare valid data for comparison among countries participating in the survey,” he added.
Dr Al Anoud al Thani, Manager of Health Promotion and Non- Communicable Diseases at SCH said Qatar would be the second country to implement the survey in the Arab region.
She added, “Smoking is the first risk factor for non-communicable diseases such as cancer and diabetes. The Global Adult Survey, which uses a global standard methodology for collecting data, has been reviewed and revised to be culturally appropriate for Qatar. The survey will provide us with more accurate data which will help us formulate strategies to prevent and decrease the prevalence of smoking in Qatar”.
About 100 researchers with hand-held devices will visit households during the survey period. The preliminary results of the survey will be published in August and the final report will be published in November.
Dr Al Anoud said that a Global Youth Tobacco Survey will also be conducted in by the year-end to monitor tobacco consumption among young people aged between 13, 14, and 15 years.
A recent Stepwise Survey in Qatar revealed that smoking was prevalent in 30 percent of Qatari males aged 18 years above and in 1.2 percent of Qatari females aged 18 years and above.
The existing law prohibits the sale of tobacco products to young people below 18 years. Individuals caught smoking within closed areas in public places are fined between QR200 and QR500.
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