“It was just meant as the period where you are potentially carrying children and this is not generalising to all women in that age,” he said.
“It can be interpreted that we are saying that women of childbearing age should not drink alcohol and is a completely wrong interpretation and we will make sure that it’s not interpreted like that.”
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But Rekve denied that it was a mistake. Rather the paragraph “lumped together too many things in one sentence”,he said,stressing that the organisation was being “completely honest about that.”
Rekve’s comments followed advice released by WHO last week that said:“Appropriate attention should be given to the prevention of the initiation of drinking among children and adolescents,prevention of drinking among pregnant women and women of childbearing age, and protection of people from pressures to drink,especially in societies with high levels of alcohol consumption where heavy drinkers are encouraged to drink even more.”
The WHO wants to reduce the world’s “unacceptably high” alcohol consumption by 20 per cent compared to the amount consumed in 2010. Alcohol contributed to 3 million deaths in 2016,5.3 per cent of all deaths.