Crescence Mukantabana on Friday, November 12, received an award from the World Health Organization (WHO) for her outstanding activities related to tobacco prevention. The World NoTobacco Day Award was presented to her by Rwanda’s Minister of Health, Dr. Daniel Ngamije on behalf of WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Every year, WHO recognizes individuals or organizations in each of the six WHO regions for their accomplishments in the area of tobacco control. The six regions are the African region, region of the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean region, European region, South-East Asia region, and Western Pacific region. Mukantabana is among 6 awardees from the African region who were awarded in May. Mukantabana said she is honored for the award and pledged continued commitment in the fight against tobacco and working with community in gender equality and women empowerment. She heads a local non-governmental organization known as Poor Women Development Network based in Kigali. Her contributions vary from a successful advocacy campaign on the Tobacco Bill to decision-makers January 2015 and went further to share it with civil society organizations. She trained 300 young women, girls and boys on fighting and preventing tobacco for sustainable peace and fighting gender-based violence, diseases and poverty in families. And later on, created the Girls Champions movement with 30 girls and boys who are now very active in fighting tobacco and other drugs and participated in media campaigns. Ngamije commended her efforts in the fight as an example of the role played by civil society organizations. “We appreciate the role you and your organization played in capacity building of different actors in the control of tobacco, especially the fight against its use in rural families,” he said. Nearly seven million people die annually due to tobacco use and this number will increase up to eight million worldwide, he added, if no effective intervention is made. “80 per cent of this death will occur in low and middle-income countries including Rwanda, we are all aware that tobacco is among five main contributing factors for NCDs (Non-Communicable Diseases),” he said. These include heart diseases, like hypertension, heart attacks, and respiratory diseases like bronchitis and lung cancer, oral cancers, and digestive cancers. Dr Brian Chirombo, WHO representative in Rwanda commended Mukantabanas works towards tobacco control. Tobacco use continues to be one of the leading preventable causes of illnesses and deaths, avoiding its use is one of the most effective ways of preventing NCDs, he said. Globally, it is estimated that 1.3 billion people use tobacco products, this is while in 10.2 per cent of men and 2.2 per cent of women used tobacco daily as of 2019. This year’s World No Tobacco Day theme was ‘Quit tobacco to a winner’. Rwanda signed WHO framework of the convention on tobacco control in 2004 and started to be implemented in 2006. Recently, the MPs tasked the ministry to come up with a strategic plan to deal with the issue of tobacco use among children below 18 years.
