Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says that the city’s HIV/AIDS success offers good insight on how cities globally can tackle the growing burden of non-communicable diseases.
The Partnership for Healthy Cities, a global network of 74 cities, says that it is working with DBKL to explore a ban on display of cigarettes and tobacco products at the point of sale in Kuala Lumpur. By-laws can be enacted before awaiting federal action.
WHO's 2023 report on the global tobacco epidemic wrongly claims Malaysia doesn't have or barely has smoking bans in public places. Malaysia is marked as having "zero" indoor places with a complete smoking ban. Malaysia has had smoke-free places since 2004.
WHO has released new game-changing scientific guidance on HIV: people living with HIV who achieve an undetectable viral load by consistent use of antiretroviral therapy don't transmit HIV to their sexual partners (undetectable = untransmittable, or U=U).
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urges all countries, including Malaysia, to protect their citizens, especially children, from e-cigarettes and vape, dismissing the tobacco industry's claim of harm reduction with such products. "It actually is a trap."
A WHO official urges Malaysia not to treat vape and other nicotine products separately from conventional cigarettes, but to regulate them together as part of tobacco control. He also moots billing the industry for cigarette butt/ disposable vape pollution.