The Hindu : `Ban on tobacco advertisements from May 1'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 08, 2004

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`Ban on tobacco advertisements from May 1'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 7. From May 1, advertisements about tobacco and its products will be banned in the country. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recommended the notification of rules on this to the Law Ministry. The Bill providing for a ban on advertising of tobacco products such as cigarettes and smoking in public has already been approved by Parliament.

Addressing a press conference on completion of one year in office as the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Ms. Swaraj said the Act would be implemented from May 1. She said that her Ministry had convened an emergency meeting of the Central Council of Food Safety on February 13 for finalising the draft notification on new stringent safety norms for carbonated water, including for brands such as Coke and Pepsi.

From April 1, HIV/AIDS patients would start getting free anti retroviral medication through Government hospitals and institutions. For the first time, there had been convergence of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis patients, she said.

On February 16, a meeting of officials of SAARC countries on bird flu or the avian influenza was being organised here in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture. Ms. Swaraj said that there had been no "human to human" transmission of the avian influenza in India.

She said that unless health was made a "movement'' with people's participation, results would be slow in coming. She underscored the need to change the mind-set of the people, particularly in population stabilisation and implementation of the ban on female foeticide. The "health movement'' should be inclusive of all forms of medicine, including allopathy, homeopathy, ayurvedic and unani.

Ms. Swaraj said the objective of "Health for All" was achievable in one year if her proposal for Rs. 1,000 crores funding to put in place "one doctor and one health worker for every 500 population'' was approved by the Finance Ministry. The proposal forms a part of the Macro-Economics Commission set up under the joint chairmanship of the Finance and the Health and Family Welfare Ministers.

A part of the new initiatives has been the move to establish six All-India Institute of Medical Sciences-type hospitals in Orissa, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal. In Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Jharkhand one medical college would be upgraded to AIIMS-level.

Under the Janani Suraksha Yojna, the mother gets Rs. 1,000 on the birth of a girl and Rs. 500 on birth of a boy for supporting better nutrition of the mother and the child. The Vande Mataram programme was a unique example of government-private sector collaboration wherein private gynaecologists would provide free counselling and check-up to a pregnant woman at their facilities. "This would give the mother institutional care under an expert,'' Ms. Swaraj said.

Polio cases had come down last year from 1600 to 218 and the aim was to reduce this to zero in 2004 and keep it there so that India was declared polio free by 2007.

The malaria control programme had been upgraded to provide mobile vans for undertaking blood samples for testing and providing medicines to patients. Filariasis eradication had been placed in mission mode towards its eradication by 2007.

This year, the programme for mental health had been included in the seven national programmes for control of certain diseases. Health melas for free spot check-up in each Parliamentary constituency from January 15 to February 15 had received an enthusiastic response from States, she said.

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