The 15th ‘World Conference on Tobacco or Health’ in 2012 will be hosted by Singapore. It was announced on Thursday (12th March) at the closing ceremony of the 14th anti-smoking summit in Mumbai. At the ceremony in Mumbai, conference president Prakash C. Gupta addressed the gathering of 2,500 delegates from over 130 countries and expressed his pleasure and gratitude at their presence.

 

The World Conference on Tobacco or Health is an important forum for international cooperation on tobacco control. The Conference is also a stimulus for national efforts in this field. The 14th conference in Mumbai concluded that all tobacco products created an economic burden, particularly in low-income countries. Hence, they called on the global tobacco control community to increase efforts to combat this.

 

To take strong measures against tobacco, the conference recommended that, at least 80 per cent countries should raise tobacco taxes to over 60 per cent of the retail price by 2012. The implementation of pictorial warnings and stopping of ‘tobacco money’ as sponsorship or in any other form were also recommended. The declaration adopted in the recently concluded conference says that, tobacco industries' product promotion using all means including the entertainment industry should be curbed effectively and urgently.