Today Uganda joins the rest of the world in recognizing the devastating effects of Tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke on human lives. This year’s world no Tobacco Day (WNTD) is being commemorated at a time when the Tobacco Control Bill has been tabled before parliament for debate.

It also coincides with a health awareness campaign facilitated by the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) in four Universities of Makerere University, Uganda Christian University, Kampala Internal University and Nkumba University Funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Uganda Country office.

The campaign is based on findings from a survey done in the four Universities in 2013. The survey discovered that at least 50% of university students had no information as to what causes Non Communicable diseases.

It should be noted that Tobacco is the leading cause of NCDs. And that majority of smokers in the world today begin smoking long before they are 18 years of age. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 70 percent of premature deaths in adults are the result of behaviors begun during adolescence and youth.

Behavioral researchers on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) have also established that behaviors associated with two of the key risk factors for NCDs—tobacco and alcohol use—are likely to start or become established during adolescence.

In 2006, the Uganda demographic Health Survey established that 22% and 4% of Uganda’s adult males and females between the ages of 15-49 respectively are habitual smokers, while the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) of 2010 stated that 15% of boys and 13% of girls in secondary schools start smoking annually.

In 2011, WHO Country NCD profile estimated Uganda’s mortality due to NCDs at 64/1000 for males and 42/1000 for females and reported a daily tobacco smoking rate of 12.3% among males and 1.5% among females.

Today youths especially in urban areas are reported to be smoking Shisha – a glass-bottomed water pipe in which fruit-flavored tobacco is covered in foil and roasted over charcoal. WHO studies report that smoking a pot of shisha is equated to one who has smoked 200 cigarettes, which factually means that shisha is a more dangerous option.

Despite the growing popularity of shisha smoking among urban youths, university students and young professionals and the presence of National Environment (Control of Smoking in Public Places) Regulations of 2004 mandating a smoke-free environment, and prohibiting smoking in public places, the practice remains largely unregulated.

Tobacco use and exposure are a leading public health problem in our country. They are a detriment to development and worsen poverty. Studies conducted in tobacco growing areas have reported that a tobacco farmer earns only 33% of the basic household expenditure of an average Ugandan; the farmer suffers cases of green tobacco sickness caused by poisoning from exposure to nicotine absorbed during cultivation and harvesting tobacco; the community is exposed to food insecurity as most of the land is devoted to tobacco farming; and four (4) in every ten (10) boys and six (6) of every ten (10) girls of school-going age are unable to join schools in tobacco-growing areas because they are working in Tobacco Fields.

As a party to the WHO Framework work Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), Uganda is obliged to put in place and implement tax and price policies on tobacco products as a way to reduce tobacco consumption.

Research has proven that increasing taxes on tobacco products effectively reduces consumption of tobacco products among poor people and acts as a deterrent to young people who would otherwise start smoking. WHO reports that a tax increase that increases tobacco prices by 10% decreases tobacco consumption by up to 8% in low- and middle-income countries.

Furthermore, focusing on cessation measures for youths and adolescents presents Uganda with an opportunity to reinforce the benefits of positive behaviors that could cut the projected burden of NCDs by half or more if we paid attention to health promotion and disease prevention.

Civil Society Organizations therefore urge the Government to;
• Increase taxes on tobacco products to levels that reduce tobacco consumption by youths in the financial year 2014/15. Uganda’s taxation policy on Tobacco products is still lagging at a paltry 42%, far below the industry’s international threshold of 70 per cent of retail price.
• Ban smoking in public places, advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco related events that are aimed at encouraging youths to start smoking.
• Increase the resources for smoking cessation services in community health centers
• Offer smoke-free education and promotion in schools.
• Pass the Tobacco Control Bill of 2014:

Enforcement measures in this bill will protect Ugandans from the devastating health, social, economic and environmental consequences of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke by, imposing bans on smoking in public places and tobacco advertising, increasing taxes on tobacco products and restricting government alliances with the Tobacco Industry.

Uganda has an estimated rate of 54 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. This is far higher than the average of 36 abortions per 1,000 women for the entire East African region.

According Dr. Mbonye commissioner for community health, Ministry of Health, in Emergency obstetric care as the priority intervention to reduce maternal mortality in Uganda, approximately 40% of admissions for emergency obstetric care in Uganda are as a result of unsafe abortion. This according to him cost the health system an estimated 7.5 billion shillings annually to treat complications from unsafe abortion.

On the other hand, the contraceptive prevalence in Uganda has remained low with only 30% of married women and 38% for the unmarried sexually active women using family planning. This has contributed to 50% of the 1.2 million unwanted pregnancies received each year which in many cases result into unsafe abortions.

There have been major efforts from the Ministry of Health with partners to address the major causes of maternal mortality in Uganda such as post-partum bleeding, obstructed labour, infection related to childbirth(sepsis), pregnancy-induced high blood pressure(Eclampsia or pre-eclampsia) and abortion-related complications. As a result, the Ministry of Health together with partners came to an agreement to develop standards and guidelines for the reduction of morbidity and mortality from unsafe abortion to guide health workers in the prevention and management of unsafe abortion.

In an effort to engage high level stakeholders and policy makers, the Ministry of Health in partnership with Ipas Africa Alliance, and the Center for health human rights and development (CEHURD) within the Coalition to Stop Maternal Mortality due to Unsafe Abortion (CSMMUA) convened a 2 day residential sensitization meeting for parliamentarians on ending unsafe abortion in Uganda on 16th -17th, May 2014 at Lake Victoria Serena Hotel in Kigo, Entebbe.

The meeting was very successful and had an attendance of over 35 high level stakeholders including members of parliament and Ministry of Health representatives. The meeting that was aimed at sharing information and seeking a way forward to address the public health crisis of unsafe abortion and its contribution to maternal deaths in Uganda saw great commitment from members of parliament who pledged to advocate and sensitize their constituencies to reduce the number of mothers who die from unsafe abortion.

The meeting also provided an opportunity to reflect upon Uganda’s regional and international commitments to women’s sexual and reproductive health as well as best practices across the continent towards reducing unsafe abortions as a major contributor to maternal mortality and morbidity and how far the government has implemented or made an effort to achieve the set targets and what members of parliament could do to hold the government accountable for maternal deaths.

PRESS RELEASE
29th April, 2014

For Immediate Release

Kampala, Uganda – Civil Society Organizations working on the HIV Prevention and Control Bill of 2010 Today take a stand to ask parliamentarians to affirm and support the Health committee’s report on proposed deletion of Mandatory Testing for HIV, Mandatory Disclosure of HIV status from The HIV Bill. We also wish to express disapproval of Parliament’s move to pass a law providing for provisions on Criminalization of intentional transmission of HIV/AIDS. Read FULL PRESS RELEASE

Uganda has today joined the rest of the world to celebrate the World Intellectual property (IP) Day which annually falls on the 26th of April. The Day is intended to promote discussion on the role of intellectual property in encouraging innovation and creativity. The International Intellectual Property day is cerebrated on the 26th April but since it fell on Saturday, the celebrations in Uganda were pulled to Thursday 24th April, and were held at the National Theatre gardens in Kampala.

This year the focus has been put on Movies under the theme “Movies: A Global Passion”. This is aimed at uplifting the movies in the world, their role in a society and their impact on development in a country.

The cerebrations in Uganda under the theme “Emerging opportunities for Uganda” involved a match from the offices of the Uganda Registrations Services Bureau (URSB) to the National Theatre where Exhibitions, Speeches, and skits were performed. The celebrations were concluded with a show of a Ugandan Movie in the National Theatre Auditorium in the afternoon.

As a human rights organisation whose objective among others is to ensure that there is a

balance between Intellectual Property Rights and Public interest, we organized a press briefing on Intellectual Property on Wednesday 23rd, 2014 at Fairway Hotel in Kampala. This was in partnership with HEPs Uganda under the Coalition to Promote Access to Medicines and during the media briefing, 20 journalists were present as was the Director of Intellectual property at URSB, Ms Juliet Nassuna who officiated the briefing. To ensure a balance between Intellectual Property and public interest,  Ms Primah Kwagala, Programme Manager at CEHURD made a Key note presentation to the media on key issues to note on Intellectual Property, access to medicines and related Public Interest Concerns to note on World Intellectual Property Day.

During the exhibition at National theater, CEHURD focused on popularizing the Creative Commons (CC) licences the organisation has been working on and this was done by utilising the several IEC materials on Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines, that were show cased at the organisation booth where different people got a chance to interact on the public needs of Intellectual property enforcement.

Over the past two years the Center for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) has been running a fellowship program Mentoring Journalists in mainstream and digital media  in Uganda to report issues of Intellectual Property (IP) and Human Rights effectively. This program focused on social welfare aspects of IP including balancing Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) with Public Interest.

Given that background, CEHURD calls upon Concepts from IP media Fellows and Journalists in Mainstream and digital media to participate in a competitive bid to do investigative stories on the effect of Intellectual Property Rights and Public Interest concerns of Ugandans. Please find the CALL FOR CONCEPTS