The Kuwait Ministry of Health (MoH) will launch, Thursday, an awareness campaign on a national anti-smoking program aiming at protecting children from smoking, in cooperation with other ministries and state agencies.

In a statement to News Agency on Tuesday, the ministry's Health Promotion Director Dr. Abeer Al-Baho said that the anti-smoking awareness campaign targets men, women, and children, and warns of the harms of smoking.

This campaign will bring awareness to the legal and criminal charges the smoker might face when smoking in undesignated smoking spaces, protecting people with health issues, children, and environment, added Dr. Al-Baho.

Dr. Al-Baho said the campaign also aims to reduce the amount of diseases and deaths that result from smoking, underscoring the lung damage smoking can cause directly or indirectly. She mentioned that the anti-smoking awareness campaign will last until May 31, the World No Tobacco Day, and will extend to all six Kuwaiti governorates by holding demonstrations in regards to the dangers of smoking.

Statistics show that children from the ages of 13-15 have been smoking electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) threefold in comparison to adults. She warned against the harms and dangers of being exposed to tobacco, traditional smoking, and e-cigarettes, underscoring the effects on fetuses and growing children.

Dr. Al-Baho mentioned there are 34 countries that ban the use of e-cigarettes, 88 countries that do not enforce an age limit on e-cigarettes, and 74 countries that do not have any regulations toward e-cigarettes.

Dr. Al-Baho also discussed the long-term illness derived from smoking, cancer, lung and heart diseases being a few examples, warning that there must be ways to limit the use of these harmful substances.