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** 20 April 2020
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** UK
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** Welsh smokers quitting over Covid-19 fears (#1)
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** International
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** Nigeria: Letter - Coronavirus and tobacco industry duplicity (#2)
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** Canada: Study - E-Cigarettes more effective than counselling for smoking cessation (#3)
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** UK
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Public Health Wales has reported a sharp rise in smokers quitting amidst fears over Covid-19. Compared to average weeks, last week saw a 51% increase in referrals to NHS Wales’ Help Me Quit service following warnings that smokers face an increased risk of suffering severe complications from Covid-19.
According to health experts, smokers are more at risk from the virus because they have weakened lung defences as a result of smoking which damages the cells protecting their nose, upper and lower airways. If they quit now however, they can improve their ability to fight the infection. The World Health Organisation has also warned that smokers could be more likely to catch the virus because of the hand-to-mouth action of smoking.
Currently in Wales 17% of adults smoke with prevalence highest in the most deprived areas of the country at 20% compared to 14% in the least deprived. Among young people 9% of 15 to 16-year-olds smoke. Last year 45% of smokers in Wales tried to quit.
Suzanne Cass, CEO of ASH Wales said: “We already know that 45% of smokers in Wales tried to quit last year and that 68% of [smokers] would like to give up. Now, as awareness spreads of the risks from Covid-19, many have realised that quitting is a matter of life or death.
“Help Me Quit are responding to the dramatic rise in demand by ramping up telephone support and ensuring all smokers are given the support they need to quit this deadly habit.”
Source: Wales 24/7, 20 April 2020
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** International
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** Writing for the Guardian Nigeria, Otobrise Omokaro highlights the tobacco industry’s duplicity in using the coronavirus crisis to present themselves as partners in public health policy whilst at the same time selling a product which kills an estimated eight million people annually.
“On April 1, 2020, Philip Morris International (PMI) announced that its Greek affiliate-Papastratos had sourced and paid for 50 ventilators, including 19 for intensive care units at a General Hospital in Athens, to help “flatten the curve” in Greece. PMI also says it is working on vaccines against coronavirus and claims it has tasked Medicago—a Canada-headquartered bio-pharmaceutical company, that it partly funds—with this task. Without coincidence, on the same day British American Tobacco (BAT) announced that its US Biotech company Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP) was working on developing a vaccine using tobacco plants.
“The public health community takes the reports with a pinch of salt and insists that the tobacco industry is acting a script that revolves around posturing and garnering media attention whenever a public health scare grips the world. They readily point to BAT’s ZMapp, a supposed cure for Ebola virus that enjoyed wide media spotlight during the 2015-2016 outbreak, but never made it out of the laboratory.
“Chief Executive of Action on Smoking and Health, Deborah Arnott, spoke the minds of the public health community in response to PMI’s donation of 50 ventilators to the Greek government, describing it as “a shameful publicity stunt”. Arnott, like many other experts encourages governments to stick with Article 5.3 of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which advises Parties to insulate their public health policies from the tobacco industry’s vested interests.
“Many question the timing of the current tobacco industry media blitz, at the same time the same industry is fighting a global backlash owing to studies showing that smoking can make people more susceptible to serious complications from the coronavirus infection.
“In response to the spate of so-called interventions by the tobacco industry on coronavirus, the WHO has said, “Partnership with the tobacco industry undermines governments’ credibility in protecting population health, as there is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests.”
“It [WHO] asserts that the tobacco industry was trying to be part of the solution, proposing support and donations to countries to improve its corporate image by showing social responsibility to the population, media and decision makers, with governments struggling with lack of resources and limited supplies of medical equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Source: The Guardian Nigeria, 20 April 2020
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A new clinical trial has found that smokers who received smoking cessation counselling and used electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) containing nicotine were more than twice as likely to successfully quit smoking compared to those who received counselling only.
At 12 weeks, 21.9% of participants given nicotine-containing e-cigarettes plus counselling had quit smoking, 17.3% of participants given non-nicotine e-cigarettes plus counselling had quit and 9.1% of participants given only counselling had quit. Overall, those using nicotine-containing e-cigarettes were 2.4 times more likely to quit than those who did not vape at all.
Those receiving e-cigarettes were instructed to vape as much as they felt they needed. Participants reported their progress via three phone calls and two clinic visits during the 12-week treatment period. At clinic visits, participants underwent a breath test for carbon monoxide (CO) to verify whether or not they had smoked. At 12 weeks, those who reported not smoking a cigarette (even one puff) in the past week confirmed by the CO monitor were counted as having quit.
Study author Mark J. Eisenberg, M.D, said: “These findings show that nicotine e-cigarettes are effective for smoking cessation in the short term. Vaping with counselling is more effective than counselling alone, although it’s not a magic bullet for smoking cessation.”
Eisenberg added that the quit rates among e-cigarette users were relatively high in the broader context of smoking cessation research, especially given that participants were heavy smokers who had used tobacco for years.
The study was underway before US reports of vaping linked lung injuries, and no such lung injuries occurred among study participants.
The research was presented at the American College of Cardiology 2020 Scientific Session and is awaiting peer review.
Source: Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology, 30 March 2020
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