Kenya to use graphic images on cigarette packets

By Andrew Wasike

NAIROBI, Kenya

Kenya will in one month’s time introduce graphic images of disease on cigarette packs to discourage tobacco use in the East African country, the Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday.

Addressing a summit in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Jackson Kioko, director of Medical Services at the Ministry of Health, raised concerns over the increased number of tobacco users in the country especially among young people.

Kioko said Kenya – which has already banned cigarette advertisements – will introduce graphic images to deter youths from taking up smoking.

He added that Kenya – which has more than 2.5 million smokers – will also introduce high taxes on tobacco products.

“Raising the taxation is the battle that we have to face head on. An effective increase in tobacco prices is expected to deter initiation into smoking, particularly by young people and [it will] motivate smokers to quit and prevent former smokers from relapse,” he said.

Kenya’s Ministry of Health has previously indicated that almost all tobacco smokers in the country started before the age of 25.

Nathan Bakyaita, regional coordinator for the World Health Organization in Kenya, said that the dangers of tobacco do not spare non-smokers, including children.

“In the growing and processing of tobacco there are effects that occur. For example, children who work in trying to raise tobacco are vulnerable to what we called the ‘green tobacco illness’ which is nicotine absorbed through the skin,” he said.

The British American Tobacco company (BAT), which holds a majority of the market share in Kenya, also exports Kenyan tobacco to the United Kingdom, America and 17 other countries in Africa.

Kenya’s 2010 statistics from the Ministry of Health estimate that 80 people die every week from diseases caused by tobacco use.