Applied arts
How many of those precious leads have been followed up on?
Sri Lanka’s Center for Combating Tobacco (CCT) plans to launch an app that will allow the public to monitor the activities of the tobacco industry, according to a story in The Island quoting a CCT press release.
CCT was established by the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, in collaboration with the World Health Organization’s country office Sri Lanka and the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol (NATA).
The CCT said the free Tobacco Unmasked HotSpots app allowed the reporting via a mobile phone of any tobacco-industry activities that promoted tobacco use, such as sales of tobacco products to the under aged and employing mobile or temporary selling points.
The public, the CCT said, may report activities undertaken to manipulate the policy making/implementation processes related to tobacco control.
And it may report media campaigns promoting arguments that favor the tobacco industry.
The plan is that the public’s input will be used to construct an online map showing the current patterns and trends in tobacco industry activities around the island.
The CCT said that the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control called on signatory countries to protect their tobacco-related health policies from the commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.
It said the first step in fulfilling such an obligation was to monitor the activities of the tobacco industry.
