Governments must reject 'donations' from tobacco industry but hold them liable
"Right now our greatest chance of dying from Covid-19 is not necessarily related to the treatment we receive or the variant, but our outcome of Covid-19 is pre-determined by our health history - whether we have hypertension, diabetes (or other health conditions that are associated with serious outcomes of Covid-19) - whether you have had years of badly managed underlying health conditions - this is the single most predictive and prognostic marker of whether you will die from Covid-19," had said Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, who leads the team responsible for international containment of Covid-19.
Tobacco has been causing epidemic-proportion diseases, that were entirely preventable. In addition, tobacco is also a major risk factor for conditions that determine whether every Covid-19-positive person will develop serious outcomes or die. That is why governments must reject so-called 'donations' in every form from the tobacco industry but instead hold these companies legally and financially liable. Financial liability of these companies will give governments much more resources to rebuild post pandemic a socially just world, which also has to be tobacco-free.
Shobha Shukla and Bobby Ramakant - CNS (Citizen News Service)
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