The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has flagged off the 2019 World No Alcohol Day which is aimed at creating awareness on the dangers of harmful Alcohol consumption. Dr. Ehanire made this disclosure at the celebration of World No Alcohol Day with the theme: “Change” recently in Abuja.

 

The Honourable Minister said, over the years, there have been increasing cases of harmful use of alcohol which in turn has exerted enormous burden across the health, social and economic systems whose disproportionate costs far outweigh the benefits derived from its consumption.

He added that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), alcohol report 2018 states that more than 3 million related deaths occurred due to harmful use of alcohol annually, which represents 1 in 20 deaths

 

He further stated that alcohol consumption is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions.  He also explained the World Health Organisation (WHO) report of 2018 which showed that Nigeria alcohol per capital is 15+ consumption in litres of pure alcohol which is 10.1, with the prevalence of heavy episodic drinking indicating that 15.3% of drinkers consume at least 60 grams or more of pure alcohol on at least one occasion in the past 30 days.

 

Dr. Ehanire said as part of efforts to meet the global voluntary target of a 10% relative reduction in harmful use of alcohol by 2025, measured against 2010 baseline, Nigeria has commenced the development of the National Policy. This policy is aimed to regulate alcohol production, marketing, consumption and identifies roles of different partners involved in the control and prevention of harmful use of alcohol in Nigeria.

 

He explained that the Federal Ministry of Health has recognized that for Nigeria to strengthen the prevention and control of harmful use of alcohol,there is need to turn these commitments into action by collectively engaging the stakeholders in the “Change Initiative”.