Vietnam raises alarm over e-cigarette use among students

HANOI,

April 26 (Xinhua)

Vietnam has recorded rising numbers of poisoning cases due to e-cigarettes and heated cigarette products, Vietnam News reported on Wednesday.

The Health Ministry's Medical Examination and Treatment Department noted a concerning uptake of electronic nicotine delivery products and heated tobacco products among young people, after a number of students were admitted to the emergency room for the poisoning of nicotine and other harmful substances found in e-cigarettes and heated cigarettes.

"Using nicotine during adolescence can cause harm to the parts of the brain that control attention, learning ability and mood," Nguyen Tuan Lam, an expert from the World Health Organization in Vietnam, told Vietnam News.

"It can also increase the risks of addiction to other substances in the future."

E-cigarettes and heated cigarettes also pose potential risks and contribute to social evils, such as drug abuse and other addictive behaviors, which adversely affect the health and lifestyle of adolescents, the health ministry warned.

Despite a slight reduction of people who smoked tobacco in 2022, down 0.8 percent from 2015, Vietnam is ranked third among Southeast Asian countries with the highest smoking prevalence, only after Indonesia and the Philippines, according to the health authorities.

Vietnam is now faced with additional challenges in its fight against smoking as the prevalence of e-cigarette use among Vietnamese teens has increased in recent years among 13-15-year-olds.

About 3.5 percent were reported to use e-cigarettes last year, up from 2.6 percent in 2019, according to a report by the Health Ministry and the Ministry of Education and Training.

The authorities also recorded e-cigarette use among adolescents and young adults with about seven in 100 aged between 15 and 24 years old using e-cigarettes.

The World Health Organization has recommended that e-cigarette heated tobacco products are more harmful than traditional cigarettes and can cause premature health effects or interstitial lung disease, which progresses rapidly and has a worse prognosis than lung cancer.

The Health Ministry last November proposed a ban on all new-generation tobacco products including e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.

COURTESY: Xinhua

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