Mauritius intensifies efforts to combat tobacco epidemic

Port Louis – Sutrajeet Ghuburrun was 16 when he smoked his first cigarette. Over the next 40 years, the taxi driver from Bel Air, a village in the east of Mauritius, smoked between 15 and 20 cigarettes a day. Although he had long known about the harms of smoking, it was only in 2022, following a coronary angioplasty (a procedure to open narrowed arteries), that he finally quit. He is now more health conscious: the 56-year-old says he has adopted a daily walking regimen and tries to sensitize those around him against this highly destructive habit. “I feel much healthier now,” he says. “I am eating and sleeping well.”

Ghuburrun’s story is not uncommon in Mauritius, where more than one in three men smoke; that number increases to 48% among males between the ages of 25 and 34. But that is starting to change. In 2022, the Mauritian authorities embarked on a concerted drive to reduce smoking.  Mauritius has since introduced a raft of new measures including stricter antismoking regulations and taxation, while also scaling up awareness campaigns and free cessation support. All this forms part of the country’s National Action Plan for Tobacco Control (NAPTC) 2022‒2026, which complements the country’s efforts to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal devoted to good health and wellbeing. 

The Public Health (Restrictions on Tobacco Products) Regulations 2022 provide the legislative framework to regulate traditional tobacco products and ban snuff, chewing tobacco and newer technology-based products such as e-cigarettes. These regulations restrict smoking in public places and prohibit the sale of tobacco products in a radius of 200 metres around educational institutions and sports facilities. Bans on tobacco advertising and promotion have been reinforced. As of 31 May 2023, it is mandatory for importers and manufacturers to submit yearly reports on ingredients, emissions and sales of tobacco products.

“Mauritius is the first African country to have successfully implemented plain packaging with a set of eight rotating pictorial health warnings with a higher percentage display,” says Damini Mohur, tobacco control focal point for the Ministry of Health and Wellness of the Republic of Mauritius.

In 2023, this comprehensive tobacco control policy saw Mauritius become just the third country in the world to adopt all World Health Organization (WHO) recommended MPOWER measures to the highest level. MPOWER consists of six “high impact” measures designed to lessen the demand for tobacco products. Following in the footsteps of Brazil and Turkey, Mauritius has since been joined by the Netherlands.

The Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Kailash Jagutpal, now hopes to see the impact of these measures reflected in the reality on the ground. "I am proud that the Government of Mauritius has successfully implemented the MPOWER measures of WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. I hope we will see a decline in the incidence of tobacco-use in the next Noncommunicable Disease Survey." The next edition of this five-yearly exercise is slated for 2026. 

According to Dr Balkrish Beedassy, the focal point for tobacco cessation services at the Ministry of Health and Wellness, introducing the new measures collectively is key to Mauritius’s efforts to curb the tobacco epidemic. “A partial approach will not work,” he says. “But when we implement these measures as a whole, we can effectively reduce the prevalence of tobacco use in both adults and adolescents.”

There are already signs that the country’s bold approach is beginning to bear fruit. Although no official surveys have yet been conducted since the implementation of the NAPTC 2022‒2026 to gauge its impact on smoking prevalence, there has been an increase in the number of offences reported under the Public Health (Restrictions on Tobacco Products) Regulations 2022. This indicates a growing awareness of the new restrictions among various arms of law enforcement.

With support from WHO and other partners, 300 officers from the Customs Office, the National Agricultural Products Regulatory Office, the Ministry of Health and Wellness’s Public Health and Food Safety Inspectorate and the Mauritius Police Force have been trained on the new tobacco control law.

“Mauritius has made impressive strides in terms of tobacco control,” says Dr Anne Ancia, WHO Representative in Mauritius. “This is an important step in the journey towards a smoke-free Mauritius, but the new measures are not an end in themselves – they are a foundation that must be consolidated and built upon.”

Going forward, the onus will be on studying the impact of the tobacco control measures on the population, then adjusting and reinforcing them as necessary to maximize their impact on smoking prevalence. WHO will continue to support Mauritius in its ambitious endeavour to save current and future generations from the manifold harms of tobacco.