Representatives from Central Asia recently participated in WHO's Tobacco Control Leadership Programme in Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, and agreed to strengthen tobacco control measures, WHO reported.

Participants from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and WHO regional and country offices described the major challenges they face in strengthening tobacco control and identified the key factors that influence the legislative decision-making process.
The aim of the meeting was to enable participants to further strengthen tobacco control in Central Asian countries in line with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Among the measures discussed were the creation of campaigns to support the adoption of tobacco control laws, the use of policy-making data and the success of pictorial health warnings and plain packaging laws in Europe.
“The Leadership Programme provides all participants with a good opportunity to consolidate the power to further strengthen the implementation of tobacco control law,” Dr Nazira Artykova, WHO Representative in Kyrgyzstan, was quoted as saying.