More than 4,000 national and regional medical opinion leaders, policy-makers and medical practitioners took part in the 20^th National Congress on Lung Diseases, which was held in Moscow from 16-19 November, 2010. The Union Russia Office acted as an official partner for this event and helped organise a plenary session on tobacco control, which also covered the release of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) results for Russia.  The Union also organised and supported a symposium on smokefree healthcare facilities at the Congress.

Professor Alexandr Chuchalin, Chief General Practitioner of Russia, opened the session on the GATS with a presentation on the importance of tobacco control and its historical development. Dr. Luigi Migliorini, WHO Special Representative in Russia, spoke about tobacco control in the international arena and Russia’s role in the global movement to combat smoking.  Professor Galina Sakharova, Deputy Director of the Pulmonology Research Institute and Dr. Oleg Storozhenko, WHO, shared with the audience the results of the GATS in more depth.

The GATS is a survey of trends in tobacco consumption, exposure to second-hand smoke and quit rates, which is used to support the design, implementation and evaluation of tobacco control programmes in various countries.  The 2009 GATS report for Russia found that 60.7% of men and 21.7% of women smoke, bringing the overall percentage of all adult smokers to 39.1% of the total population[1].

Following this discussion, Trish Fraser, from The Union, spoke about international experiences with smokefree healthcare facilities. Dr. Olga Kutumova, followed with a report on the successful experience of implementing smokefree healthcare in the Krasnoayrsk region under a grant from The Union.

The symposium offered participants the chance to discuss Russia’s Concept on National Policy to Combat Tobacco Use (Concept), which was approved by the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier in September.  The discussion that ensued focused on the importance of smokefree healthcare and touched on steps towards the further development of the Concept in Russia.

Under the national Concept, the Russian government is planning to roll out a number of tobacco control policies from 2011 that will be implemented over a period of five years and include measures to increase taxes, impose advertising bans, implement packaging restrictions and ban smoking in public places. The news was met worldwide with accolades as Russia has one of the highest per capita smoking rates in the world[2][3].

[1] For more information see http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/global/gats/countries/eur/reports/russian_federation/

[2] http://www.who.int/tobacco/surveillance/en_tfi_gats_russian_countryreport.pdf

[3] http://www.fctc.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=464&Itemid=21