World No Tobacco Day 2020: While tobacco use is dangerous at any age, it is particularly proving to be more deadly than ever in the wake of the open-ended global COVID-19 pandemic. It has been advised that using smoking products like bidis, cigarettes, hookahs, e-cigarettes etc. as well as chewing smokeless forms of tobacco like khaini, gutkha, kharra, mawa etc. make the user more inclined to infection by the virus. This may be connected to:
- Enhanced rotation of fingers (which may have been infected) touching the mouth and face
- Touch of smoking products (which may have been affected) with the lips
- Sharing tobacco products like bidis, cigarettes, hookah, e-cigarettes etc. and social customs of preparing for others and sharing mawa or khaini mix to others.
- Higher risk of getting chest and lung infections due to the immunosuppression caused by tobacco use and smoking. This suggests that people who smoke have a greater chance of getting coronavirus related to people who do not smoke.
- Smoking may raise the risk of coronavirus by elevating enzymes that allow the COVID-19 to enter and harm lung cells.
Dr Himanshu A. Gupte from Narotam Seksharia Foundation states that "a high dimension of smokers, contrasted to non-smokers, have health conditions like COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), asthma and heart disease, which are further increased by other diseases. For these smokers, catching the disease increases their risk of developing complications and is may be potentially fatal. Smokers are at a greater risk of growing to pneumonitis if they contract the disease. COVID-19 is known to have critical complexities and even greater fatality in people with comorbidities like, diabetes, hypertension, COPD which are connected with smoking."
Also Read: Are e-cigarettes safer than tobacco? 4 myths about e-cigarettes busted
Tobacco Users
Nicotine users (especially smokeless weed users) can be useful in developing the condition through spitting. Coronavirus can spread through small droplets from the mouth or nose, which are dispersed when an infected person sneezes, coughs, spit, talks, or exhales. These droplets fall on objects and can survive for several days or up to a few hours. Others can be infected by touching these surfaces or objects followed by touching their eyes, nose or mouth.
Also Read: 10 Ways That Tobacco Use Affects Your Body
"This is why the use of any tobacco product – smoking or smokeless -- increases the risk of being infected by the coronavirus intensifies chances of complications and also spikes up the probability of spread. Considering this, several states in India have wholly or partially banned tobacco use and spitting in public places. Some states and districts have also temporarily halted the production as well as the trade of nicotine goods, says Dr Himanshu A. Gupte.
- This has resulted in a lot of modern nicotine users not being able to reach their smoke stocks leading to withdrawal symptoms due to this unintended abstinence. Nonetheless, this could be the best time to quit tobacco use. It will also improve your health and reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, lung disease, and other tobacco-related illnesses.
- During this pandemic, helplines provide a tobacco dependence treatment programme offers nicotine discontinuance counselling by trained counsels. Smokers, including smokeless tobacco users, can talk to the counsel and get clear direction through free catch up phone calls to quit their use.
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