The Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean is celebrating the World No Tobacco Day 2005 titled "Health Professionals against Tobacco". Following is the speech of Dr. Hussein Al-Gezairi, the Director of the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Eastern Mediterranean: On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day 2005, the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean is celebrating the theme "Health Professionals against Tobacco". Health professionals include: doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, psychologists, psychiatrists, pharmacists and other members of the health-related professions. Between 2002 and 2004, WHO in collaboration with its partners developed the Health Professionals Survey which was administered in Egypt, Jordan, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The survey revealed that over 23% of health professionals smoke, with an average consumption of 16 cigarettes a day. And although 97.9% of survey participants agreed that smoking is harmful to health, only 10% had successfully quit smoking, and 70% of those who smoke regularly believed that a physician who smokes is less likely to advise his/her patients to stop smoking. --More 1327 Local Time 1027 GMT
