London – United Kingdom, August 9th 2015: Dr. Abdul Salam Al Madani, an Emirati figure was re-elected yesterday to be the Chairman of the Anti-Smoking International Alliance. The re-election took place in London and he was voted for unanimously for the benefit of the alliance by the board members. The decision was announced based on the accomplishments that Dr. Al Madani achieved during his chairmanship and in recognition of the developments that he introduced during the past year, in addition to his exerted efforts for the past 20 years in combating smoking and spreading awareness about its deadly returns.
During the past year, Dr. Al Madani contributed in restructuring the Alliance and proposed a number of new ideas and activities that shall lead to fulfilling the noble objectives of the Alliance; which in return will have an excellent impact on the society and generations to come. The proposal included adopting a deliberate strategy to combat smoking around the world.
During the past year, the Alliance achieved enormous success in a number of cities around the world, mainly in the states of Arizona and New York in the United States in addition to the United Kingdom and Switzerland. It is being discussed in the Alliance’s agenda to add countries of the GCC to the Alliance in addition to a number of other countries such as: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippine, India and Brazil.
Moreover, Board members agreed on Dr. Abdul Salam Al Madani’s proposal to select Dubai as the Main Hub of the Anti-smoking awareness campaigns; delivered by the Alliance based on its liability and tremendous achievements in the field of combating smoking. Dr. Al Madani illustrated that Dubai has been a pioneer in this regard as it has banned smoking in shopping malls, hotels and closed public facilities, and the proposal was approved based on a follow up by the alliance where they praised Dubai and considered it a pioneer in this field.
Dr. Al Madani said in his speech at the annual meeting in London: “I am very proud of this achievement, however this means that we need to work even more to spread awareness about this bad habit especially in the Arab and Asian world. According to official research a lot of young people die because of smoking every day, in addition to the billions of dollars spent not only on cigarettes but on the expenses incurred by individuals and by the health sector on treatment and medicines.”
“The Anti-smoking International Alliance was established with the prime objective to spread awareness among communities about the risks and outcomes of smoking which causes the death of a large number of people annually. Official research from the WHO indicates that there are 6 million people dying annually from smoking and there are 600,000 nonsmokers die from second hand smoking, i.e. being surrounded by people who smokes. And this rate is expected to increase into 8 million people annually by 2030, therefore we need to extend our effort together to eliminate this malady.” Said Dr. Al Madani
Dr. Al Madani added: “Imposing strict laws and regulations to eliminate this very serious habit is not the only solution, we need to extend our efforts on spreading awareness among families, at schools and universities. We have to endorse the danger of smoking and its outcomes in the school curriculums in order to have a well-educated generation that fully understands the ill effects of this habit. From this prospective, the Anti-smoking International Alliance launched an annual award “Tom Hurst International Award” which is granted for health associations, private sectors, municipalities, governments, markets, airports, universities and schools in addition to individuals who contribute to curtail this habit to spread. I would like to take this opportunity to invite all of you in creating the change.”
At the end of his speech, Dr. Al Madani illustrated that “The members of the alliance come together in joining their efforts to further encourage the information exchange within the healthcare sector of all countries; to eliminate smoking. We share exceptional relations with international societies mainly the IHF and the WHO and are working diligently to protect people from diseases and early death thereby also protecting future generations from any other social, environmental and economic ill effects of smoking.”
Board members also discussed other vital issues and approved on awarding some of the associations for their efforts in this matter and to be given the “Estimated Union Award”.
Nada Saaydeh
Co-ordination, Follow up and Media Manager - Chairman's Office
INDEX Holding
Tel: +971 43624717
E-mail:nada.saaydeh@index.ae
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