Increased tobacco use a serious health threat: expert

Increasing tobacco use in Pakistan is a serious health threat, as it kills six million people globally every year. Pakistan is one of the four countries, which has witnessed a rapid increase in tobacco market and the issue needs to be addressed immediately. These observations were made by Dr Ali Bin Sarwar Zubairi, Consultant Pulmonologist and Section Head of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Aga Khan University Hospital, on the occasion of 'World No Tobacco Day' on Monday.
Dr Zubairi said that smoking was the primary cause of lung cancer and various other fatal diseases, like COPD and myocardial infarction. "WHO estimates that Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) will become the third largest disease by 2030 and smoking is a major cause of this disease," he added. He said that COPD was characterised by progressive difficulty in breathing due to inflammation of respiratory tract and being a chronic lung disease it had no cure.
He mentioned that smoking was mostly adopted during young age, therefore, youths should be educated about the health hazards of smoking. He further said that Third World countries like Pakistan were at a higher risk of COPD, as the global tobacco epidemic killed nearly six million people each year, of which more than 600,000 were non-smokers dying from breathing second-hand or environmental smoke. "More than 80 percent of these preventable deaths are among people who live in low and middle-income countries," he added.
Referring to a population-based study on COPD titled 'BREATHE', Dr Zubairi said that the disease was on the rise in Pakistan. Sharing details, he said that the study was conducted in 11 countries including Pakistan, according to which 18.7 percent of the country's population was involved in smoking cigarettes and pipes. The study also revealed that awareness about COPD among the smokers was very low, he added. He said that smoking was the primary cause of COPD and its symptoms developed gradually over time and the main symptoms of the disease included shortness of breath, persistent coughing, wheezing and fatigue.
He said that there were also other causes of COPD besides smoking, which included biomass fuel and occupational exposures, eg coal mining, asbestos, respiratory infections, socio-economic status and ageing. He pointed out that most patients did not consult doctors in the early stages of the disease as they often attributed the early signs to other factors. "It is only when the symptoms get severe that most people get themselves checked and by that time a significant amount of lung function has already been lost," he observed.