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By 2010, graphic warnings on tobacco products a must

Members of the AGCC Anti-Smoking Committee, of which the UAE is a part, at a meeting yesterday, unanimously decided to adopt the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to issue warnings on tobacco products, particularly cigarette packets, through the use of graphic images.

Dr Wedad Maidoor, head of the UAE National Committee for Tobacco Control at the Ministry of Health (MoH) said, “We have agreed to implement the FCTC requirement of Article 11 which stipulates that graphic warnings be made compulsory on tobacco products. The specifications have also been approved but we can announce them only later.”

She also explained that the process will take at least two years to be completely in place.

“We’ll immediately start work on the new recommendations and by 2010, they should be in place,” she said.

“Tobacco trading companies will require our opinion as health advisors before they market their products. Several countries, including Australia, Canada and Brazil are already following this regulation,” she noted.

Dr Maidoor, however, made it clear that the pictures to be used on the products being marketed in the UAE would be supplied by the MoH.

“Graphic requirements for the AGCC region are different from the rest of the world, therefore, the MoH will supply all pictures to the tobacco companies.”

According to the regulations, the graphics will be carried alongside multilingual text messages (English and Arabic) and displayed prominently on tobacco related packets.

• UAE