Dr. Basem Naim, Minister of Health in the Palestinian government, stressed the need for the success of national campaign against smoking, which will be launched in the ninth of February during a ceremony organized by Supreme National Committee to be free of tobacco, with the participation of a large number of ministries and public and private institutions.
Naim called, during a meeting held by Supreme National Committee on Tuesday, for implementing meaningful programs that help smokers to give up this scourge in a scientific manner through channels and specialized centers.
He confirmed on the need to increase the coordination mechanisms among all public and private authorities to make more activities and special events to combat the scourge of smoking, noting that the National Commission decided to cooperation with Ministry of Education to organize marches including more than 800 students, including all levels and all ages and both sexes to participate in this campaign .
Dr. Naim stressed that the logo should express the campaign's goals to decrease the phenomenon of smoking, pointing out to the need to organize regular meetings to follow up what has been achieved in this campaign.
According to official data of 2007, 487 976 people at the age of 10 years and over in the Palestinian territories are smokers, by 20.9% in the West Bank and 13.7% in the Gaza Strip.
