The National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol (NATA) urged government authorities this week to stop moves by manufacturers of alcohol and cigarettes promising the users to bring these products to their doorstep in the midst of the prevailing islandwide curfew.

Chairman of NATA, Dr Samadhi W. Rajapaksa wrote to the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Health Minister saying that his organization came to know about such moves by the manufacturers and urged to take necessary action to stop this immediately.

"The World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) recommends for governments to inform the public about the high risk of infection of COVID-19 in smokers versus non-smokers and encourage smokers to quit smoking," the letter said.

In a separate communique sent to government authorities titled "A request to the government of Sri Lanka from the Chairman of NATA to ban the sale of cigarettes during this outbreak", Chairman Dr Rajapksa pointed out that previous studies show that smokers are twice more likely than non-smokers to contract influenza and have more severe symptoms, while smokers were also noted to have higher mortality in the previous MERS-CoV outbreak.

"A systematic review of the evidence shows that based on limited data, smoking is most likely associated with the negative progression and adverse outcomes of COVID-19 and based in the largest study, the authors calculated that smokers were 1.4 times to have severe symptoms of COVID-19, and approximately 2.4 times more likely to be admitted to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), need mechanical ventilation or die compared to non- smokers," the communique said.

Source:-  Sunday Times