Avoiding alcohol, tobacco will minimize Covid spread – NATA

On Oct 1, 2021

National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol (NATA) Chairman Samadhi Rajapaksa highlighted that the country’s current pandemic situation has now recorded a remarkable improvement and said if people completely refrain from consuming any form of alcohol and also tobacco the spread of the Coronavirus could be minimized before long. Speaking to the Daily News, NATA Chairman Rajapaksa urged the public to help the Health Department’s endeavor of creating a Corona free environment throughout the country from October 01.

He said statistics have revealed that consuming alcohol and also tobacco definitely causes serious health hazards and it will lead to contracting various other deadly diseases, especially cancers and the Coronavirus.

“People should be very careful at this moment as increasing one’s immunity would be drastically lowered when consuming alcohol and tobacco,” he said.The NATA Chairman further said in addition to the Coronavirus and reducing the immunity of people, alcohol also leads to domestic violence, highway accidents and also clashes between people.

He said statistics have also revealed that there are over 75,000 cancer patients in the country and most of them contracted this disease due to consuming alcohol and tobacco smoking.

Quoting statistics, the NATA Chairman said during 2019 over 31,000 cancer patients were reported from many parts of the country and many of them were alcohol addicts.