Smoking Campaign was launched here on Monday. The campaign was formally inaugurated by Prince Mish'al Bin Majed, Governor of Jeddah, in Crown Plaza Hotel here. The campaign will officially start its activities Tuesday by having an anti-smoking symposium wherein professors, consultants, experts and representatives from government's anti-smoking programs will participate. According to Dr. Abdurraheem Qari, the symposium president, this year's campaign will concentrate on the doctors' role in encouraging the smokers to quit the deadly habit. The campaign has the support from both the public and private sectors: The Ministry of Health, National Guard, Nahdi Pharmacies and the International Medical Center have extended their helping hand to the campaign. Dr. Manal Shams, anti-smoking coordinator in the Primary Health Care in Jeddah, said the Ministry of Health has made an appraisal of some American, Brazilian, British and Canadian anti-smoking guidelines and came up with a Saudi protocol which will be applied in the four anti-smoking clinics founded in four locations. These clinics, she said, are located in Briman, Salamah, Safa and Al-Balad districts and many more similar clinics have been planned in the future. Each clinic has a family physician, said Dr. Manal. “Doctors can be seen only through appointments as we are not sure of the number of patients coming to us for help.” Saudi patients, she said, can have appointments from the four clinics through the campaign activity points. Non-Saudi patients will have to approach the International Medical Center (IMC). All through the campaign, Dr. Manal said the IMC will supply – for free – primary health clinics with Champex, a medication that helps people quit smoking. Also, doctors have been made available to correct certain misconception among the smokers like Shisha is less dangerous than smoking regular cigarettes, said Ayman Tamr, President of the Health Education Committee. Dr. Hassan Basha, a consultant of artery and heart diseases, said a recent study showed there were 1.3 billion smokers in the world and 70 percent of them wanted to kick the habit. “About 25 to 30 percent smokers are in the Kingdom, and the ability of the women to get rid of the toxins is more vulnerable than men. Women have recently come to match men with the risk of cardiovascular diseases caused by smoking,” added Dr. Basha.
