Mumbai: Tobacco users are at high risk of developing disease like cance

Tobacco users are at high risk of developing various non-communicable disease (NCD) including cancer. As per Global Tobacco Adult Survey (GATS) the tobacco prevalence is around 29 per cent in our country. As tobacco contains Nicotine which is highly addictive it is hard to quit tobacco even if individual wishes to do so therefore special efforts and counselling is required. With this objective tobacco quit line services are established at Centre for Cancer Epidemiology, Tata Memorial Centre, ACTREC, Navi Mumbai in collaboration with Tobacco Control Division of Ministry of Health and Family welfare, Government of India, New Delhi.

"The person who wanted to quit tobacco they can call on this toll free "1800-11-2356". The trained counselor will provide counseling to the tobacco user. There are 10 counselors who speaks in Marathi, Hindi and English. The trained counselor will help the tobacco user in quitting the tobacco. It is legal binding to the tobacco company that they need to print Tobacco Quit Line number 1800-11-2356 on their tobacco product," said Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi - Deputy Director Centre for Cancer Epidemiology, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai.

The helpline number is getting around 200 calls each day though it has been almost 15 days that the service has been started. So far, they have received around 3000 calls from the tobacco users. Most of the callers are in their thirties with highest number of male gender.

Total calls received from 16th January to 31st January - 3780 (Male 3746 and Females 31)

Of these smokers are- 60% and smokeless tobacco users are 35%

Mean age of caller is 30 years and number of follow up calls - 1864

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