Doha: Qatar Cancer Society (QCS) launched an anti-smoking awareness campaign for students in schools and universities to highlight adverse effects of smoking on the health of smokers and people around them.
QCS began the campaign in College of North Atlantic with a lecture by Dr Mahasen Okasha for about 30 students.
He talked about negative effects of smoking and diseases that can caused by it and said clinics in Qatar can help kick the habit through medical service.
The Health Education Department at QCS organised a lecture by Dr Maha Othman in Philippine International School, attended by about 700 students, teachers and administrators.
Dr Othman talked about cancer in general and lung cancer and its causes in particular and said smoking cigarettes and other types of tobacco products such as cigars, pipes and shisha increases the chance of developing lung cancer. She said smoking can affect all members of the community, especially children as they always seek to imitate parents, which increases the chance of their smoking in the future and their vulnerability to cancer more than others. She said children who mingled with smokers may start smoking in the early stages of life, making them always susceptible to various diseases.
Dr Okasha stressed that the community needed to be educated on the harmful effects of smoking and said the smoker also harms the health of others around him who are subjected to passive smoking that makes them susceptible to respiratory diseases such as asthma, allergies and lung cancer.
She stressed that it is necessary to highlight the seriousness of smoking, its effects and diseases that may be caused by it to encourage students to quit smoking and contribute to developing healthy and educated generations.
The Peninsula
