It may be a dim silver lining to a particularly dark cloud, but one apparent result of the Aids pandemic in Swaziland is that fewer people in the country are smoking.
”When people learn they are HIV-positive, they are counselled to live a healthy lifestyle to prolong their lives. The shock that they may die prematurely of Aids is just the type of trauma that gets people to stop smoking,” says John Kunene, principal secretary at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
Although the Council on Smoking, Alcohol and Drugs (Cosad) has no statistics on the reported decline in smoking, it says there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to buttress the claim.
”Our … evidence is gathered at secondary schools, where teachers and headmasters report fewer students smoking, from other various groups and organisations, and from what we perceive [to be] happening with tobacco sales,” says an official with Cosad, which has championed the anti-tobacco cause for two decades.
Shops surveyed report that cigarette sales are down, something borne out by hawkers in the central town of Manzini.
These vendors sell small items in makeshift sidewalk stalls at the bus station, or enter the buses with an assortment of goods to sell to passengers. Many of the hawkers come from neighbouring Mozambique, from where they smuggle goods for sale in Swaziland. In years past, the vendors have made a tidy profit from bootlegged cigarettes.
”I am selling fewer cigarettes,” says Simeon, a hawker from Maputo. ”People are not buying as many. I am selling more mobile phone cards these days than packs of cigarettes.”
More anecdotal evidence of Swazis kicking their nicotine addiction comes from the residents of Manzini and the capital, Mbabane. Many say the smell of cigarette smoke is less discernible these days in the streets of the two towns — and at sports stadiums and public gatherings.
Even the newsrooms of Swaziland’s two daily papers have changed their ways: traditionally havens for prolific cigarette smokers, the offices no longer feature journalists working in a haze of smoke.
”There were two or three prominent editors who died of Aids last year, although no one will come out and say Aids was the cause of their deaths. They were all heavy smokers, and at least one of them made the effort of switching to nicotine patches shortly before he died, to prolong his life,” says a woman reporter who prefers to remain anonymous.
According to the Central Statistics Office, which assembles economic data for the Ministry of Economic Planning, nearly 40% of Swazi adults between 18 and 49 are HIV-positive, though many are not aware of their status.
Those who do go for tests receive counselling before and after the fact.
”We tell everyone that they may live long and active lives for years to come. With improvements in drugs, they may even live a full lifespan,” says Sepiwe Hlope, co-president of Swazis for Positive Living, an Aids support group.
”Aids is no longer an immediate death sentence if they follow a healthy lifestyle. What they must do is some moderate exercise, take vitamins, lower or cut out alcohol consumption — and no smoking,” he adds.
”I used to smoke, but I lost a taste for it when I got sick,” says an HIV-positive contractor from Matsapha, an industrial centre near Manzini.
”Smoking made my cough worse when I got the first flu after getting the HIV. I just didn’t feel like smoking anymore,” says the builder, who only wishes to be identified as Sam. He adds that a lack of money has also played a role in prompting members of a support group he attends to kick the habit.
Several of these HIV-positive people have lost their jobs because of illness — or are working fewer hours — leaving them with less disposable income for cigarettes. Others prefer to use what money they have to buy vitamin supplements and fresh fruits and vegetables, which can be expensive in Swaziland.
If claims about decreased smoking in the Southern African country do prove to be true, they will put it at odds with global trends.
A report issued in January this year by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) stated that tobacco consumption was expected to increase in developing countries until 2010. It said that demand for tobacco products in Africa had increased at the record rate of 3,5% in the 1990s — a pattern that was expected to repeat itself during the next six years.
However, the opposite was true of wealthy countries.
”By 2010, the share of developed countries in world tobacco consumption is projected to be only 29%,” said the FAO in a press release.
According to the Framework Convention Alliance, a group of NGOs working for the ratification of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), almost five million people die every year as a result of tobacco use.
The alliance believes this figure could rise to 10-million by 2020, with developing countries accounting for 70% of deaths. (The FCTC is a treaty drawn up by member states of the World Health Organisation to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco.)
The FAO has attributed falling tobacco use in developed nations to heightened awareness of the ways in which smoking damages a person’s health, restrictions on tobacco advertising — and increased taxation on tobacco products. It recommends that similar steps be taken in poorer countries, which are driving tobacco production at present.
The debate around tobacco is complicated by the fact that it provides an important source of foreign exchange for sub-Saharan countries such as Zimbabwe and Malawi. However, the World Bank says that if efforts to achieve a global fall in the demand for tobacco succeed, this decline will take place gradually, giving farmers enough time to find alternative crops.
The argument was put forward in a 1999 report entitled Curbing the Epidemic: Governments and the Economics of Tobacco Control. — IPS