Kathmandu, Apr. 26: Jumla district has witnessed a 20 per cent  decrease in the number of smokers.

The number has come down remarkably as 81 per cent of the 90,000 population   had been smoking and 32 per cent of the children between the age 10-19 were among them.

Ninety four  per cent of the people in the remote and high land VDCs were found smoking. They used traditional sulpha for smoking.

This fact was revealed at a seminar organised here today by the Mrigendra Samjhana Trust in order to inform about the pneumonia control programme for the children under five launched jointly by the Trust and the local people in the district with the   financial cooperation of  the Health Tax Committee of the Ministry of Health.

According to an assessment report prepared by a team led by Prof. Hari Bhakta Pradhan,  those giving up smoking are from the Chhetri community  rather than Dalits and Brahmans and males more than females.

The report states that  in some VDCs the percentage of those giving up smoking is more than 50 per cent.

It further states that some have even  thrown  sacks of tobacco in the rivers, broken sulphas and given up cultivating tobacco.

After the programme, the Trust treated 7,942 patients for pneumonia, 261 for diarroaha, 233 for dysentery and 1,117 for those giving up smoking during the period 055/56.

It is said that the child mortality rate from pneumonia and diarroaha decreased to 183 per thousand from 336 per thousand because of the save the children programme launched by the Trust since 1981 in association with usaid.

Speaking on the occasion, special secretary at the Ministry of Health   Dr. Somnath Aryal  said that even though hmg has been allocating Rs 50 million for checking advertisement of tobacco and alcohol products from the electronic media, it is being widely advertised by other medias.

Founder of the Trust Dr. Mrigendra Raj Pandey pointed out the need to provide continuity to the programme.

From the chair, trust chairman Dr. Krishna Jung Rana called on the hmg to continue providing assistance for the programme.

Also speaking on the occasion were programme coordinator and reader Ramji Prasad Pathak, assessment team leader Prof. Hari Bhakta Pradhan and trust vice chairman Bhim Bahadur Adhikari.