Yesterday, the United Nations Pavilion held a “Dream of a smoke-free city” celebration. Mark Rowswell, the Commissioner General of the Canada Pavilion which has committed to the anti-smoking campaign, presided over the ceremony.
The World Health Organization (WHO) had worked with Shanghai Singapore International School to co-organize a drawing competition entitled "dream of a smoke-free city". The young artists of the top 10 best entries were invited onto the UN Pavilion Forum stage to display and interpret their work.
China's Smoking Control Report 2010 shows that the number of smokers in China has reached 350 million and that nearly 1 million people die annually from smoking-related diseases. Chinese women's smoking rate is 3%, with 180 million children affected by secondhand smoke.
Recently, four departments including the Ministry of Health and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly issued a document calling for all health administrative departments and at least 50% of the medical and health institutions to be smoke-free by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and some other cities have banned smoking in public places.
WHO Tobacco Free Initiative official Dr. Sarah England said in an interview, “We are very pleased to see many cities, including Shanghai, have begun to introduce no smoking in public places and the scope of non smoking areas is constantly expanding. However, to fully and effectively ban smoking, we should prohibit smoking completely indoors, on public transportation and in other public places.”
