Public Health Capacity Buliding for Strengthening in South Eastern Europe

Serbia

Contact:

Dr. Srmena Krstev - Country project manager (CPM)

Clinical Center of Serbia
Institute of Occupational and Radiological Health "Dr Dragomir Karajovic"

Deligradska 29

11 000 Belgrade, Serbia

Tel: + 381 11 264 6574

fax: + 381 11 643 6575

Email: srmena@sbb.co.yu

Links:

Ministry of Health of the Republic of Serbia - www.zdravlje.sr.gov.yu

Institute of public health of Serbia - www.batut.org.yu

National Meetings

National meeting on Ratification of the FCTC for (former) Serbia andMontenegro was held in November 18, 2005 in Podgorica, Montenegro.

The Parliament of (former) Serbia and Montenegro approved the ratification ofthe FCTC on December 1, 2005. The ratification instrument of the FCTC wasdeposited at the UN in New York on February 8, 2006, and entered intoforce on May 9, 2006.

National Meeting on Capacity Building in Tobacco Control

The workshop was held from February 21 to 23, 2007 at hotel “NORCEV” at Iriški Venac in Serbia. All together 33 participants were present.In general all participants found the workshop very successful, the presentation interesting and intriguing for discussion. The most important conclusions were as follows:

• Improvement of already established intersectoral collaboration on tobacco control, as the results and achievements were so far quite successful;
• Initiative for a new Law on Smoking Ban in Enclosed premises by the Intergovernmental Coordinating Body;
• Initiative to make the expire date on all tobacco products legal obligation;
• Involvement of more institutions, organizations and individuals in tobacco control, such as Red Cross, students’ organizations, NGOs, church humanitarian organizations, volunteers, etc.;
• Better use of already existing network of institutes of public health and other preventive programs (surveillance of newborn babies), as well as other programs, projects and networks;
• More frequent inspections’ control and better law enforcement;
• Education and training of students, nurses, inspectors, members of the Parliament, etc.;
• Establishment or strengthening already existing referent laboratory for control of tobacco products (possible at the Agricultural Faculty);
• Media campaigns with the help of experts in the field for target groups;
• Initiative for “Smoke-free Hospitals” and “Smoke –free Schools”
• Strengthening the services for smoking cessation;
• Initiating the researches and studies on smoking prevalence, diseases of tobacco-related diseases, and economics of tobacco;
• Use of information and communication technology in health promotion and smoking prevention and tobacco control (SMS, websites, etc.).