Health professionals need play bigger role in tobaccocontrol
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-05-31 00:18

Chinese health professionals need to play a bigger role in lowering the ratio of smokers in China, said experts Monday before the 18th World No Tobacco Day.

Health professionals should give up smoking and do more work ininforming people the harmfulness of smoking and help them quit smoking, said Han Qide, vice-chairman of Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPC).

Smokers in China has reached 350 million by 2005 according to latest figures released by the Ministry of Health. Every year, 1.5 to 2 million Chinese smokers buy exported cigarettes and the quantity of smuggled cigarettes to China has been soaring, said Xu Guihua, deputy head of China Association on Tobacco Control.

China has become the world's No. 1 producer and consumer of tobacco, she said.

However, a successful experience on tobacco control in developed countries show the decrease of health professional smokers would lower the number of smokers of the general public. The high smoking ratio of the Chinese is directly caused by the high smoking rate among health staffers, said vice minister of the Health Ministry Wang Longde.

According to a survey conducted by China Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) from September to November last year, among 3,650 doctors in six major cities, 23.1 percent of them smokes every day, including 41 percent of male doctors and 1 percent of female doctors.

The survey also revealed more than half of male doctors aged between 40 to 45 smokes every day, and only 2.7 percent of them had given up smoking.

Studies at home and abroad show 25 kinds of diseases threatening health and life are related to smoking, including lung cancer and heart illness, said Jiang Yuan, director of the tobacco control department under CDC.

Nearly 1 million Chinese die of smoking-related diseases every year, said Jiang. About 95.1 percent of the interviewed doctors knew smoking can cause lung cancer, but know little about the relations between smoking and other diseases.

In addition, Chinese health professionals have poor ability to help people quit smoking. The survey shows only 7.1 percent of the doctors know how to make plans for smokers to get rid of the addiction, more than 97 percent of them had never used drugs to change the habit and more than half of them had never heard of the drugs.

Each May 31 is the World No Tobacco Day. This year's theme is "Health Professionals Against Tobacco".

Close

Today's Top News     Top China News
China scraps export tariffs on 81 textile products         CCB removes two senior leaders amid listing         End of tax breaks for companies in sight         French voters reject first EU constitution         Bank regulator warns of soaring estate loans         China rips Japan's war-criminal remarks	China criticizes EU, US for textile curbs       China to scrap export tariffs on 81 types of textiles       Bank regulator warns of soaring estate loans       EU safeguard measures on textiles opposed       Unhealthy lifestyle blamed for fatal diseases       CCB removes two senior leaders amid listing