[ad_1]
A policy document on Covid-19 and tobacco use from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology School of Public Health has called for a total ban on the use of shisha in Ghana to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
In addition, he called for a ban on the sale and import of tobacco products, including cigarettes, during Covid-19, noting that the disease is a respiratory illness and tobacco could aggravate symptoms and worsen results.
The document that was prepared in August 2020 and copied to the Ghana News Agency, reports the key result of a rapid response study (the Covid-19 and the Tobacco Project) and was created to examine the use and tobacco control during Covid-19. while building on an existing collaboration between various countries.
The study was conducted by Ellis Owusu-Dabo, Divine Darlington Logo and Patricia Amoah Yirenkyi with a grant from the UK Global Challenges Research Fund and additional funding from the Scottish Funding Council’s (GCRF) Global Challenges Research Fund. University of Edinburgh.
The document said: “The use of shisha is prevalent among young people and involves sharing the same mouthpiece that can be a route for the transmission of SARS-Cov-2 and other communicable diseases.”
He urged the government to increase tobacco taxes, ideally by 50 percent to generate revenue to support the provision of health care in the wake of Covid-19, adding that; “It is very necessary to increase the tax on tobacco so that there is money available to treat people suffering from tobacco-related diseases, as well as Covid-19.”
The document said that this would reduce tobacco use among young people because they were sensitive to the high prices of tobacco products.
He said that cigarettes remained the most common form of tobacco use, pipe smoking (shisha), chewing, sniffing, smokeless tobacco and the use of ‘tawa’ among other forms by Ghanaians and that the Demographic Survey and Most recent Health Department for 2014 reports the prevalence of cigarette smoking. among men, 4.8% and women, 0.1%.
He said that the regional trend continues to show a high prevalence in the northern part of Ghana: 31.2%, 22.5% and 7.9% in the Upper East, North and Upper West regions, respectively.
The document said that recent data indicated that about one in 10 high school students uses any form of tobacco products.
He said that current tobacco use could, based on existing evidence, affect the severity of Covid-19, and therefore it was necessary for the government to integrate the risks of communicable and non-communicable diseases into general health and well-being. of the population.
— GNA
