Media centre

Your Royal Highness Princess Aisha Bint Al Hussein
Your Excellency, Mr. Saeed Darwazeh, the Minister of Health
Dr. Ala’Din ‘Alwan, WHO Representative in Jordan,
Dr. Mohammad Shreim, President of the Jordan Anti-Smoking Society
Excellencies,

Dear Guests,

The world is celebrating today No Tobacco Day under the theme of “Health Professionals Against Tobacco.”  Indeed, doctors and health professionals have a key role to play in helping people kick tobacco addiction as they guide and advise patients, children and youths.

We need to support our anti-smoking campaigns by having our own health professionals as ambassadors in this anti-tobacco fight. Through their daily interaction with people, health professionals can change the mindset of communities at a very low cost. In the most recent Global Youth Tobacco Survey, it was found that 33% of students in Jordan between 13-15 years smoke. Half of these young smokers would like to quit. Hence, the importance of basic life skills in promoting awareness and preventing smoking in the country.

In our Adolescent Programme, UNICEF focuses on promoting healthy life styles and engaging young people in activities that raise their awareness. This way, adolescents, early in their lives, are supported with skills they need to make appropriate decisions to protect themselves and to say “no” to smoking.

We found in the Jordanian youth survey that youths here are aware of the health risks of smoking, but this is not being reflected in their life styles. We need the help of health professionals and doctors to intensify their efforts with the young by talking, convincing answering questions, and by being role models.

Approximately 48% of males and 18% of females above 25 years in Jordan are smokers, according to a 1996 national survey on morbidity mortality. There are nine tobacco companies in the Kingdom, and smokers spend 600 million dinars on cigarettes a year. In Jordan, 4,000 citizens suffer from cancer, one third of these cases are related to smoking.

Health professionals can influence decision makers and society to join the fight against tobacco. All the support is needed to enforce anti-smoking laws with a price tag associated to violations. As it stands, 34% of our Jordanian doctors are smokers.

UNICEF in Jordan has worked with the Ministries of Health and Education in supporting the training of professionals working with young people in schools and those supporting anti-tobacco legislation. With the Ministry of Health, through health education programmes, UNICEF supported the establishment of 50 tobacco-free schools.  Yet there are many other schools left that also need to be free from smoking.

Your Excellency, the Minister of Health, you suggested last year at a similar meeting to the one we are attending today, that a police task force needed to be established and assigned the responsibility of fighting tobacco abuse in the country. You used this as an example of how existing legislation could be effectively implemented.  I am happy to see that the Ministry of Health launched a campaign last month to monitor smoking in tourist restaurants and hotels obliging these public outlets to have non-smoking areas. But we need to be more aggressive when it comes to enforcing these laws in places where young people go to. The Ministry of Health is also now prohibiting smoking in its building and its health centres. Faculties of Medicine, Nursing Schools should also encourage their students to promote anti-smoking.

The city of Aqaba intends to enforce anti-tobacco legislation and prohibit the selling of cigarettes to persons under 18 years of age, and Petra University this month, has joined Al Zaytouneh and the Science and Technology universities, and announced that it is a smoke free university: 4,000 students stood up and called for a university free from smoking.  According to a recent study conducted at this university most new students are smokers (16-18 year olds). This group smokes 21-30 cigarettes a day with most of them having parents and siblings who smoke.

We hope to see health professionals and doctors in the country joining forces to come up with innovative ways of building an anti-smoking momentum. This will ensure a more healthy future and better quality of life for the people, especially the children and adolescents, of Jordan. After all, prevention is better than cure, and cheaper too!

Thank You.