Bulgaria

The Ministry of Health translated the WHO FCTC guidelines and distributed these. A video spot, being a gift from the World Lung Foundation was broadcasted by the Ministry of Health and Regional Health Inspections through TV, radio, electronic and print media.

Activities for WNTD were organized in Bulgaria by the Ministry of Health, NGOs and school and university students with the financial support of WHO. The Day was commemorated in the center of Sofia, at one of the favorite gardens for the citizens. A lot of activities were implemented - free consultations of pregnant women who smoke passive or active; free consultations of smokers and non-smokers; measuring of CO in exhaled air and carboxyhaemoglobin; measuring of the level of blood pressure.  

Signatures were collected on banners. Those, together with banners Bulgarian school children made, will be send to Venkat Regunatan from India to make the longest wall against Big Tobacco. At the end of the day there was a concert-presentation in the National Palace of Culture in Sofia. The day featured also  the national school competition “The Project of our Class – for a life without tobacco 3” and the international competition “No of Cigarettes!” where 1315 children between 5 and 11 years from Bulgaria participated with their drawings against tobacco. Further focus was on the national information & media campaign “Pregnancy without tobacco smoke” and the national competitions “The healthiest ex-smoker” and “The most ingenious health inspector”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Croatia

In Croatia several events took place. The main event was a press conference organized by the Ministry of Health and the Croatian National Institute of Public Health supported by the WHO Country Office in Croatia. WNTD received a significant media coverage from TV, radio and newspapers. National, regional and county institutes of public health organized commemoration events and other related activities. 

 

Czech Republic

A press conference and seminar in the Parliament of the Czech Republic were held under the auspices of Mgr Petr Gazdík and MUDr Boris Šťastný, parliamentarians of Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. They presented current statistics of the consequences of smoking, the petition for the ban of smoking in restaurants as well as reasons why the Czech Republic should ratify the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control finally (The Czech Republic has not signed the WHO FCTC as the only EU country) and support tobacco dependence treatment.

MUDr Eva Králíková, CSc., from the Reference Centre for Tobacco Addicts in the Czech Republic, 3rd Internal Clinic, 1st Faculty of Medicine, the Charles University and the General University Hospital in Prague stated “the tobacco dependence is a separate disease – F 17 diagnosis. Only few smokers manage to stop smoking unassisted, it a strong dependence really. The treatment increases the success of dependence quitting several times and it should be accessible to all smokers within health care systems. It is, moreover, one of the economically most advantageous interventions in the medicine.” In spite of these arguments, the tobacco dependence treatment is not paid by the public health insurance.

More than 117 000 people who have signed the petition on the Internet agree that smokers should be prohibited to pollute air in public including restaurants. Lukáš Nádvorník, one of the organizers of the petition, stated “if almost 120 000 people express their opinions, the Parliamentarians will register it at least perhaps and will have to attend to it.”

“The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) has 172 contracting parties already. The Czech Republic is not among them and has been the only country in the European Union for a long time, in which the ratification process has not been finalized yet,” pointed out MUDr Alena Šteflová, Ph.D. from the WHO Office in the Czech Republic. It is the task of today's parliamentary seminar held on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day to draw attention to serious consequences of the tobacco epidemic and to the necessity of ratifying the WHO FCTC, which is the prominent world tobacco control tool.

 

Greece

 The Directorate of Public Health of the Greek Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity, in cooperation with the Greek Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs organized an event for presenting the results of a health education programme which was addressed to primary education children and had been drawn up by the aforementioned services aiming at the prevention of smoking. The subject of this workshop was “I Learn and I Decide: I do not learn (how) to smoke”. The workshop took place at the building of the Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity on 31 May 2011.

 Also in the framework of the celebration of World No Tobacco Day, the Directorate of Health Education of the Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity issued a circular focusing on the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as well as to the measures taken in Greece for the implementation of this convention.

Regarding the anti-tobacco campaign, material such as caps and T-shirts with anti-tobacco slogans was distributed.

 

Kazakhstan

The Ministry of health presented a set of pictorial warnings at a press-conference and stressed the need to implement these in Kazakhstan. The Media covered it widely and published series of articles. 

 

Kosovo (in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999))

A debate was organized jointly by WHO, IPH and UNICEF. Participants were representatives and professionals from main Institutions (Parliamentary Commission on Health and Social Welfare), the Ministry of Health, the National Institute of Public Health, representatives of Diplomatic Missions and also young people from UNICEF Innovation Lab.

 

 

Poland

A press conference took place in the Polish Ministry of Health. Speaking at the press conference were the Head of the WHO Country Office, Poland, Ms Paulina Miśkiewicz, Undersecretary of State Mr Adam Fronczak, Chief Sanitary Inspectorate Mr Przemysław Biliński and Prof Witold Zatoński from the Oncology Center in Warsaw.

The speakers presented interesting outcomes of studies done among smokers in Poland and the consequences and impact on health. The study indicates that even though there are 9 million smokers in Poland, as many as 74% of the population are in favour of smoke-free legislation. Quite disturbing findings done among pregnant women in Poland identified that as many as 12% of pregnant women still smoke cigarettes three months before birth. 19% of them smoke as many as 10 cigarettes per day. 104 media relases dealt with tobacco control, WNTD and the WHO FCTC.

 

Republic of Moldova

A round table with representatives of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Agriculture, the food industry, the WHO Country Office, civil society and the mass media took place at the National Centre of Public Health. The event included formal presentations by different sectors regarding the progress and gaps in implementing the WHO FCTC, as well as a session of questions and answers with mass media and broader discussions among stakeholders on the way forward.

"Tobacco use was not so spread in our country in the past but due to extremely low prices on tobacco products it has significantly increased, reaching a prevalence of 51% among men”, said Dr Ion Salaru, First Deputy Director of the National Centre of Public Health, and added, “We are currently in the process of developing a comprehensive tobacco control programme with WHO support and we hope this will serve as a solid base for accelerating the implementation of WHO FCTC."

Representatives of the WHO Country Office and the National Centre of Public Health also attended an event dedicated to WNTD, organized by the civil society in the biggest shopping area of the capital city with the aim of raising awareness about the harm of tobacco among the general population. The event marked the official launch of the civil society’s initiative on scaling up the social theatre against tobacco.

 

Serbia

WNTD was celebrated with a press conference at the Media Center with the following speakers: Professor Dr. Zoran Stanković, Minister of Health; Dr. Dorit Nitzan, Head of the WHO Country Office in Serbia; Dr. Srmena Krstev, Head of the National Committee for Tobacco Prevention; Prim. Dr. Tanja Knežević, Director of the Institute of Public Health.

This was followed by a performance at the Square Nikola Pašić with an address of the Minister of Health, Professor Dr. Zoran Stanković, a performance of medical students from the IFMSA and writing wishes related to the improvement of tobacco control in Serbia in future on the papers and putting them on the balloons that were sent into the air. An address of the promoter-student of Law School, Milan Cvijić, awarded for his essay “Law on protection of Citizens from Exposure to Tobacco Smoke” and a  debate on the total smoking ban by the law, economic and political science students could also be seen. Students of the I grade primary school “King Petar II Karadjordjević” with their teacher were drawing pictures and a discussion between citizens and the members of the National Committee for Tobacco Prevention and inspectors regarding WHO FCTC and the Law on Protection of the Citizens from Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, as well as employees from the National Institute of Public Health playing volleyball completed the festivities.

Representatives from the Ministry of Health, members of the National Committee for Tobacco Prevention, the Council of Tobacco Control, inspectors, partners, promoters, journalists, persons that stopped smoking, etc were present. The event was organized by the  Ministry of Health of the Republic of Serbia / National Committee for Tobacco Prevention and the National Institute of Public Health “Dr Milan Jovanović Batut” - Office for Smoking Prevention.

 

 

Slovenia

This year the National Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Slovenia in cooperation with the Regional Public Health Institute Ljubljana and the Ministry of Health organized an expert meeting in Ljubljana. The programme focused on the WHO FCTC and different measures of tobacco control and new data on tobacco use in Slovenia and tobacco industry activities. Public health experts, representatives of Ministry of Health, health professionals, NGOs, media and others were invited that deal in any way with tobacco control from all over Slovenia. Overall,there were almost 110 participants.

A press release (present journalists received it at the meeting, to the other media press release was sent directly after the event) and summaries of the lecturers present at the meeting were distributed.

 WNTD media interest and coverage are very satisfiying. 4 journalist from the Slovenian Press Agency, Dnevnik (second biggest national newspaper), Večer (third biggest national newspaper) and Radio Slovenija (national and biggest radio station in Slovenia) were present at the meeting. On 30th and 31st of  May almost all Slovenian media covered this topic, including the biggest national media mentiond above, plus national TV Slovenia, the biggest Slovene commercial TV Station POP TV and the biggest Slovenian newspaper DELO. More than 50 articles about this topic were published in the period from 25th of May to 3rd of June and there were about 15 media request for additional information - especially from smaller radio stations.

In different regions of Slovenia, Regional Public Health Institutes in cooperation with different organizations performed numerous activities, such as informative stands with CO measurements, and in many cases young people helped: activities for children and adolescents (prize-giving, exhibitions etc); lectures for different target groups (pupils, health workers, etc), presentations of programmes for smoking cessation for youth; marches and also media presence.

 

Tajikistan

The WHO Country Office, Tajikistan and the Ministry of Health of Tajikistan marked World No Tobacco Day 2011 by calling for global action to protect the country's population from diseases and damage caused by tobacco use.

"Prevailing in some countries, problems and diseases associated with tobacco use are extremely important in their decision, as well as preventing them", said Dr Mirzoev A.S, Deputy Minister of Health.  “Tobacco use is not conducive to liberation from it, it is addictive and is fraught with mortal danger.” 

"Ensuring the implementation of the WHO FCTC, governments can reduce the burden of fatal and crippling heart attacks, strokes, cancer and respiratory diseases, which are becoming more widespread in the world", added Dr Pavel Ursu, WHO Representative/Head of WHO Country Office, Tajikistan. “WHO urges governments and the public to be protected from tobacco use, as well as support the implementation and strict enforcement of laws protecting tobacco in all public and workplaces, and to take global action to combat it."

 

Turkey

Dr Toker Erguder participated in the WNTD event in Istanbul which was organized by the national coalition on tobacco or health. The provincial health director of Istanbul, the president of the national coalition and experts from universities attended and gave speeches on tobacco control and what works in tobacco control and on Tobacco control legislation: already saving lives. Recep Tayyip Erdogan (the same name with prime minister of Turkey), a 12 years old boy with a sever asthma bronchiole, made a speech during the press conference and asked the Prime Minister to take the necessary precaution for a tobacco-free Turkey by the year 2023 ( the hundredth anniversary of the Turkish Republic).