Middle East's First Observatory for Tobacco Control to Be Established in Egypt

In a country where EGP 70 billion is spent on cigarettes every year (that's like 80 billion cigarettes, geez) and 95,000 annual smoking-related deaths, it’s no secret that the Egyptian population may have a smoking problem. It's a habit, it's a tradition, it's an aesthetic, but most of all it's an addiction and it's getting too much. Which is why the Anti-Smoking, Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases Association has joined hands with the WHO office in Egypt to establish the Middle East and North Africa’s first-ever tobacco control observatory.

The observatory will monitor tobacco companies’ behaviours in Egypt as well as the tobacco industry as a whole, and push for the application of various laws while releasing annual reports, which would include statistics about the Egyptian tobacco, and smoking-related diseases and deaths.

Dr. Naima Al-Qusayr, a representative from the WHO office in Egypt, commended Egypt’s efforts in curbing tobacco uses through various public awareness campaigns and the ongoing attempts to expand the scope of the ban on the promotion of tobacco products. She added that these efforts will help achieve the Sustainable Development Goal which aims to reduce premature deaths by noncommunicable disease by one third before 2030.