JTI violates Tobacco Control Rules in Bangladesh
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Smoking Patterns and COVID-19: Evidence from Pakistan
COVID-19 pandemic, considered as a major health challenge in the world, has led to deaths, business closures, loss of income and livelihoods, a rise in mental distress and an inevitable impact on health behaviours.
As COVID-19 is a respiratory disease lot of speculations do arise in the minds of the smokers regarding their susceptibility to get the disease due to their smoking habits. Assessing these changes is essential for low and middle income countries where the vast majority of tobacco users live but cessation support is still rudimentary.
In the light of this, a study done in Pakistan by Kamran Siddiqi,PhD et al, Affiliated to University of York, UK and The Initiative, Pakistan, has randomly recruited 2062 cigarette smokers and their change in patterns of smoking were observed throughout the pandemic period. The researchers found bidirectional changes in smoking patterns, while majority of smokers reported either quitting or reduction of smoking, some reported an increase of smoking too.
Out of all the participants 14% smokers reported quitting and among those who continued smoking 68% have reduced the smoking patterns. Apart from the potential risks of smoking like high risk of infection, hospitalization and mortality associated with COVID-19, lack of access, affordability and opportunity to smoke during the lock down times have also affected the positive changes in their habits, especially among the smokers in low income category with a risk to lose their jobs if they continued smoking during the pandemic times.
Out of those who continued smoking, 14% have maintained as per the pre-COVID era, 18% have increased cigarette use. Out of those who stopped smoking, 39% have relapsed in the subsequent months. Mental stress, anxiety, social isolation during pandemic times and lack of access to cessation support were identified as the causative factors for the increased consumption and relapses. The majority of them were financially stable than the rest of the cohort.
More efficient smoking cessation treatments and interventions could have converted these unusually high number of quit attempts (including the later relapsed cases) observed among smokers during COVID-19 into permanent abstinence. Even small scale changes in tobacco use consumed by over a billion people worldwide, could lead to major shifts in future disease burden. More importantly, a better understanding of the magnitude and nature of such behaviour change can help services and policymakers to respond in an agile and effective manner.
Offering smoking cessation treatment by implementing Article 14 of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control should become an even greater priority for countries like Pakistan where millions of smokers are willing to quit but have little access to cessation interventions.