Some of Africa’s Tobacco Control Focal Points to share their experiences
Various studies from across the globe have shown that tobacco use — and smoking in particular — is a risk factor for COVID-19. Smokers who contract COVID-19 have been shown to have severe symptoms as a result of their impaired lung function and often compromised immune systems.
At the same time, across the continent countries have all been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic — and this has had a significant impact on tobacco control efforts. As lockdowns were enforced in most countries, concerns have been raised about the slow pace and — in some instances – lack of implementation of tobacco control activities for the year.
For most countries this is due to the fact that the TC implementation is coordinated in their departments of health promotion, non-communicable diseases, mental health or substance abuse. These are located in Ministries of Health and because their involvement in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic is pivotal, they have had to change priorities.
However, the pandemic presents an opportunity for countries to step up tobacco control efforts. Tobacco control actors, who are informed by the World Health Organisation’s FCTC guidelines, have an obligation to to heighten information sharing to the African population to counter the tobacco industry, broaden understanding of the link between tobacco use and COVID-19 infection to accelerate contextualized tobacco control.
To aide this process, the CTCA is hosting a webinar for Tobacco Control Focal Points to share experiences on the impact of COVID-19. Countries will have a chance to showcase what they are doing in Tobacco Control during the COVID 19 pandemic and project what they intend to do in the COVID-19 context.
Two webinars will be conducted: the first targeting CTCA’s French speaking countries; Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso. The second will target CTCA’s anglophone countries; Uganda, Kenya, Zambia and The Gambia.
The French webinar will be hosted on May 27, 2020 and the English webinar will be held on May 29, 2020.
To register for the English webinar, click here.
To register for the French webinar, click here
