The 16th World Conference on Tobacco or Health opened at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, United Arab Emirates on 17 March 2015. The keynote speaker at the inaugural session was WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Ala Alwan. Dr Alwan discussed the tobacco epidemic within the context of noncommunicable diseases, the theme for this year’s conference.
The Conference is a call for collective action to fight tobacco, by working together and integrating tobacco control into two broad agendas to achieve our common health and development goals.
For five days, multisectoral stakeholders will discuss the many aspects of the tobacco epidemic, and will highlight the efforts being made to control it through the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and theMPOWER policy package to support implementation of the Convention.
