Launching Project to STOP Smoking via Smartphones - Tunisia

Launching Project to STOP Smoking via Smartphones

Plans of the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the International Telecommunication Union, starting on Saturday, August 13, the current in the implementation of the project quit smoking through the mobile phone, which is the first project for the promotion of health through modern technologies (mobile phone) in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa region.

The project aims to help smokers who want to quit smoking and then accompany them over several weeks in order to help them and to provide the necessary they need to take in the full stages of quitting.

According to the briefing paper issued on Wednesday for overalls health, it can be for smokers who want to quit, to participate in this free program through short missions and the use of green free number 85 355.

Registration required in this system send personal data (name, age, sex) on the free number mentioned (85 355).

And have registered when accepted in the first stage of a person during a period not exceeding fourteen days, a group of missionaries aimed at stimulating the initiative to personally select the date to quit smoking once and for all. After that then receives a set of messages that will be backed up during the take-off stage to provide him with the necessary assistance needed by at least 3 months.

It is noteworthy that this project has proven effective in many countries where enabled the promotion with 72% of the success rate of quitting smoking, according to the information paper. It is considered a complement to other means of quitting as possible participant in the compensator nicotinic and treatment support in helping clinics to quit smoking guide.

And health promotion project falls through modern technologies within the prevention of noncommunicable diseases like cardiovascular diseases and cancer diseases where smoking is the main risk factor them.

Smoking causes 10 thousand deaths a year in Tunisia, which is nearly two million smokers note that nearly 25% of teenagers start smoking at the age of eleven.

Implementation of the project will be launched in the first phase of the mandates of Greater Tunis (Ariana, Tunis, Manouba, Ben Arous) to include then the rest of the states of the republic.

And supervised the preparation of the draft quitting smoking through the mobile phone multilateral committee include the ministries of health and communication technology and the digital economy and the number of components of civil society and specialists in the field and with the help of the World Health Organization and the International Union for the connection.