DOZENS of Nicosia residents patiently queued in Eleftheria Square yesterday morning to have their lung capacity tested.
The free test was organised by two research units, including the smoking unit and respiratory diseases and environment unit at the Cyprus International Institute for the Environment and Public Health in association with Harvard School of Public Health to mark yesterday’s World Health Organisation (WHO) World No Tobacco Day.
Two of the institute’s doctors manned the booth to administer the test to the public between 10am and 2pm.
Some people queued for over 30 minutes to have the spirometric test, which involves measuring the total volume of air in their lungs during forced expiration.
Institute director Philip Demokritou said the aim was to sensitise the public about the dangers of smoking on this “significant day”, adding that this year’s theme was smoke-free environments.
Paediatric Pulmonologist Dr Panayiotis Yiallouros said he hoped the campaign would raise awareness about the loss of lung function due to smoking, adding that people had been queuing up all morning to have the test.
“It’s a very big turn out,” Democritou said. “To be honest I hadn’t expected it to be this big.”
Smokers, passive smokers and non-smokers waited patiently in the noon heat to have their lungs tested.
One 35-year-old woman told the Cyprus Mail she had plans to kick the habit, but not just yet.
“I plan to quit in September, but for now I want to enjoy the summer,” she said.
Asked why she was doing the test, she said: “I just want to see that I’m OK and that my lungs haven’t been damaged.”
However, she said if the test came back with a poor result she’d “have to have a cigarette to calm my nerves”.
Another 30-year-old smoker said she had no intention of quitting but that if the spirometry result indicated she had damaged her lungs, she didn’t know what she’d do.
“I get very stressed about things like that. I hope it shows I’m OK,” she said.
Soteris Panteli, 43, said he’d been smoking for 25 years and had tried and failed to quit twice, most recently during the first three months of this year.
“I’ve never done this test before or been to a lung specialist because I’ve never felt any sort of ailment.”
Nevertheless, he said he wanted to do the test to “see what’s going on [with my health]”; depending on the results, he hoped either to stop smoking or at least cut down.
Like Panteli, two pack a day smoker Costas Andreadou, who had just completed the test, told the Cyprus Mail he’d done it to help him quit smoking or to at least cut down.
The 59-year-old, who said he had been smoking for 40 years and lacked the willpower to quit, said the test had indicated no damage so far.
“I’m lucky,” he said.
But Demokritou said that just because the test didn’t show someone’s lung capacity had been affected, this did not mean they should carry on smoking because the health hazards were indisputable.
“Today, the test doesn’t show he’s been affected but tomorrow such a person could get lung cancer. Did you know that 92 per cent of all lung cancers are smoking related?”
Demokritou said a number of factors determined whether someone’s lung capacity was affected, including their genetic makeup and whether they worked in an environment that exacerbated respiratory problems.
“Some people are more susceptible to cardiovascular diseases rather than respiratory diseases. This doesn’t mean the only organ affected [due to smoking] in our body is our lungs,” he added.
Other non-smokers dotting the busy queue said they wanted to have the test done out of sheer curiosity.
One such person was 25-year-old Natali Ntarsenko, who said she’d smoked for a year as a teenager.
“I’m just curious to see what my lung capacity is,” she said.
Panayiota Olympiou, 74, said the same.
“I don’t smoke but others living in my house have done. I’ve also got bronchial asthma and I don’t know if it’s related [to passive smoking], but I just want to check my health,” she said.
According to the World Health Organisation, tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world.
“It is well known that half the people who smoke regularly today – about 650 million people – will eventually be killed by tobacco. Equally alarming is the fact that hundreds of thousands of people who have never smoked die each year from diseases caused by breathing second-hand tobacco smoke,” it said.
