At a time when Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has embarked on an anti-tobacco campaign, a global report has revealed that India’s ranking has dropped in two years from 123rd to 136th in 2014 out of 198 countries in pictorial health warnings on tobacco packages, according to a report released on Tuesday.
Unfortunately, India also ranks last among the SAARC nations such as Pakistan and Bangladesh that have graphic health warnings, as per the report released at the sixth session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in Moscow.
The report, ‘Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report 2014’, rates countries according to how successfully they have managed to introduce pictorial health warnings on tobacco packets — a proven strategy that deters people from smoking or chewing tobacco.
Under the FCTC, an international treaty signed and ratified by India, the parties are required to carry health warnings on all packages of tobacco products describing the harmful effects of tobacco use. The warnings “should be 50 per cent or more of the principal display areas, but shall be no less than 30 per cent of the display areas”, and include pictorial warnings.
As per the report, the three top countries based on their average front/back size of pack warnings are Thailand (85 per cent), Australia (82.5) and Uruguay (80 per cent).
The report has come at a time when the Health Ministry is due to announce a new set of warnings shortly. Harsh Vardhan has set up a committee to recommend the gold standard warnings for India in keeping with his vision of making India a global leader in tobacco control.