Smoking cigarette is harmful to your health. Photo: VNN

"It is necessary to put warning images on cigarette packets to protect the community's health," said a seminar held by the Vietnamese Health Ministry and the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance in Hanoi on Sept. 26.

Representatives from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam reached consensus on the printing of warning of health damages on cigarette packets in the hope of helping their citizens being aware of tobacco's harmful effects and reducing smoking in their countries.

Many experts agreed that this is an effective method as each smoker who consumes one packet per day would have to see warning images at least 7,000 times per year.

Vietnamese tobacco smokers burn 8.2 trillion VND (513 million USD) each year. According to the University of Public Health's recent research, Viet Nam has to spend 804 billion VND (50 million VND) or 18 percent of its yearly expenses on health service for treatment of three typical smoking diseases, including lung cancer and coronary.

Another survey conducted by Dr Nguyen Duc Chinh of the National Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease revealed that more than half of the smokers said they paid no attention of the current warning message on cigarette packets. Almost half of surveyed women smokers and more than 40 percent of adolescents gave similar answers.

Meanwhile, 80 percent of the national population, including smokers and non-smokers, voiced their support to the warning image that is as big as half of the cigarette packet's size, according to the Viet Nam Association of Standards and Consumers Protection's survey.

Source: VNA