WESTERN PROVINCE

RUBAVU — The district health official Moses Munyamahoro has said that the district will soon enforce a bylaw, passed by the district advisory council banning public smoking.

The law passed on March 30 2007, prescribes a fine of Frw10,000 to errant individuals.

"Rwanda is one of the signatories to international convention against tobacco and its effects. That is why we sat down to design a strategy that would reduce smoking by setting a fine of Frw10,000 to public smokers. We hope it will help mitigate diseases caused by tobacco," he said.

Citing article 81 of the environmental laws, which prohibits public smoking, he called upon district authorities to stand up against tobacco due to its effects.

Without giving figures, Munyamahoro noted that there were scores of death due to nicotine in the district and the country. He stressed the need to ban smoking in all public places like auditoriums, hospitals or other health premises, libraries, court rooms and other public places.

"Second hand smoke is the name given to dangerous poisonous smoke caused by burning tobacco in cigarettes roll-ups and pipes. Inhaling other people’s tobacco smoke is called ‘passive smoking and is dangerous to people’s health," he explained.

He said that current scientific evidence shows that passive smoking causes death, disease, and disability. Most experts believe that moderate, occasional exposure to second-hand smoke presents a small but measurable cancer risk to nonsmokers.

He described smoking as useless and a danger to health.

"Smoking is not only a health hazard to smokers, but also to the innocent passive smokers who have suffered and died from tobacco-related diseases like cancer and other respiratory diseases," he said.

He called upon women especially expectant mothers to desist from smoking saying, it affects their lives as well as the unborn baby.

According to Francoise Murekatete, a mother of two in Gisenyi town, public smoking is an evil that should be stopped.

"I call upon our leaders to put up a strong campaign against tobacco not only in public places such as hospitals and bars but also in families. Most of our husbands have a habit of smoking inside houses without considering other members around them. Some of our husbands ignorantly pass the poisonous smoke to even their own children," she said.

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