About 54 per cent of cigarette packets are being marketed in Bangladesh with improper health warning violating the existing anti-tobacco rules, says a global study, reported UNB.

As per the rules, the cigarette packets must be covered by 30 per cent of both the front and back of the pack with health warnings, but the study of Johns Hopkins Tobacco Pack Surveillance System (TPackSS) has found that only 46 per cent of packs had proper health warnings.

Dr Joanna Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control and professor of Disease Prevention at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, revealed the study findings at a press conference at Jatiya Press Club in the capital.

About 93 per cent of packs had health warning text in black font printed on a white background while 96 percent of packs had health warning texts displayed with 18 point font.

TPackSS partnered with the Bangladesh Centre for Communication Programs (BCCP) conducted the survey in three major cities — Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong. A total of 191 different cigarette packages were collected from the study locations during 23 September to 2 October, 2013.

TPackSS collection found 56 packs that displayed the required Bangladeshi health warning label, and 46 per cent of these were compliant with four key requirements — warning location, size, label elements, and text size.

Anti-tobacco activists said article 11 of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) requires that Parties implement effective tobacco packaging and labeling measures to increase public awareness of the negative health impacts of tobacco products.

BCCP team leader (Tobacco Control) Dr Nazrul Haque said the health warning in tobacco products is not being implemented ever 10 years after an anti-tobacco law was announced.

The pictorial warning on cigarette packets will be introduced from March next, he said, but he feared that there will be poor implementation of it.

Coordinator of National Tobacco Control Cell (NTCC) under the Health and Family Welfare Ministry Muhammad Ruhul Quddus, country representative of World Lung Foundation Shafiqul Islam, research programme manager of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Naseeb Kibria and Dr Syed Mahfuzul Huq of the Directorate of Health were, among others, present at the press conference.