The Ministry of Public Health is carrying out an awareness campaign to curb the spread of smoking among young people. It was launched last May 22.

Ahead of the World No Tobacco Day 2024 celebrations on May 31, the Ministry of Public Health has launched an awareness campaign targeting young people. Launched 09 days  ago in the country’s 10 regions, the campaign aims to inform young people about the risks of smoking. The initiative will be carried out in addiction treatment and prevention centres and multifunctional youth promotion centres. The ultimate goal is to curb the spread of the smoking epidemic among young people.

According to the Ministry of Public Health, “300,000 young people in Cameroon regularly use tobacco and its by-products”. The current awareness campaign is one way of reducing the scale of the situation. This preventive strategy goes hand in hand with the measures taken under international law. Since 2003, the member states of the World Health Organisation have signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which defines tobacco as a psychotropic substance that damages the health of smokers and non-smokers alike.

The deployment of the Ministry of Health’s services in this area is part of the celebration of World No Tobacco Day 2024. The theme chosen for the day focuses on child protection and calls on the public to “protect children from the tobacco industry’s interference”, which is developing at the expense of health, despite the harmful effects of the product. The nicotine in tobacco can cause heart problems, lung infections, cancer and hepatitis.