NEW DELHI: India ranks fifth, jointly with Hong Kong and Thailand, in terms of the largest pictorial warning on cigarette packs with 85 per cent of both sides of the packets covered, a Canadian Cancer Society report released on Monday said.
The Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report 2018 highlighted that 118 countries worldwide have made pictorial warnings mandatory, representing a global public health achievement, and 58 per cent of the world’s population is covered by this regulation.
Timor-Leste has the largest warnings on cigarette packages in the world with 92.5 per cent on front and back, followed by Nepal and Vanuatu with 90 per cent and New Zealand at fourth with 87.5 per cent.
In the 2016 report, Nepal and Vanuatu were top-ranked with 90 per cent of the cigarette packet covered by pictorial warnings, while India secured the third position.
The current report is the sixth Canadian Cancer Society international report on cigarette package health warnings. Previous reports were published in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016.
The report released in Geneva at the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) revealed that there was tremendous international momentum for plain packaging of tobacco. (AGENCIES)
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