Grandis Hotel Kota Kinabalu joins other premises in the city to be awarded the Blue Ribbon campaign plaque 2017 by the Sabah Health Department.

The Blue Ribbon plaque introduced by the World Health Organisation is an international recognition for premises who voluntarily turn themselves into cigarette smoke-free zones.

According to Kota Kinabalu Health Officer Dr Jiloris @ Julian Frederick Dony, this means that the premises are totally free from cigarette smoke.

"Those who wish to smoke have to go out the premises to smoke. Today Grandis join several other premises, including hotels in the State in being smoke-free zones.

"This smoke-free status would be audited every two years and about 30 percent of the premises nationwide that volunteered to be cigarette smoke-free premises are from Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan."

He said this after the handover of the plaque to Grandis Hotel Kota Kinabalu Deputy General Manager Chung Keh Vee, Monday.

"In Kota Kinabalu, at the moment we have nine such smoke-free premises and the majority are hotels.

Others are schools and churches. We also intend to further promote the idea to other premises in the state as well."

Sabah posted a 28.4 percent smoking percentage which is five percent higher than the national average and the percentage is increasing.

As such the State Health Department urges more premises in the state to be blue ribbon award candidates as a way to protect the public from the dangers of cigarette smoke and a cleaner environment.