The Health Ministry’s National Programme on Tobacco Affect Prevention on April 25 launched the “National No Tobacco Week” in response to the World No Tobacco Day (May 31).

All ministries, sectors, organisations and people have been urged to join hands in creating a tobacco-free environment in public sites, workplaces and at homes,and mass media agencies have been called to disseminate widely information on the harm of tobacco to health.

The World Health Organsation (WHO) has selected the theme “Implementing WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control” for 2011 and gave out five measures to encourage the effective prevention of impacts of tobacco at countries participating in the convention.

Those measures are creating a non-smoking environment, increasing tobacco tax, printing health warnings on cigarette boxes, banning tobacco advertisements totally and creating sustainable financial sources for the fight against tobacco effects. Vietnam has considered those measures as priorities in its tobacco control.

Smoking is one of leading reasons causing diseases and deaths in the world.

According to a survey in Vietnam in 2010, as many as 47 percent of men are smokers, putting the country in the group of 15 nations with the highest rate of male smokers./.