Society

Experts call for smoke-free China as promised to WHO

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-11-01 06:56
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BEIJING - Experts said China should boost tobacco-control efforts so it can fulfill its pledge to the World  Health Organization to ban smoking in indoor public places by January.    

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"There's a lot to be done to live up to our promise to the  World Health Organization. Most fundamentally, we need a detailed  national tobacco-control plan for governments at all levels across the country to act on," Huang Jinrong, associate researcher of the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told  Xinhua Sunday.    

China committed itself to creating an indoor smoke-free  environment within five years after the World Health Organization  Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHOFCTC) came into effect in China on January 9, 2006.    

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said by the end of 2006, nearly half of China's 337 large and medium-sized cities had regulations to restrict smoking in public areas.