The Manitoba Government has announced a new social impact bond dedicated to helping people quit smoking.

The bond will bring the government, the private sector, not-for-profits and other stakeholders together to find and deliver prevention-based solutions to help people stop smoking.

The government is partnering with Shoppers Drug Mart and Pharmacists Manitoba. They will be investing over 2 million dollars in the next 5 years to encourage quitting through activities such as counselling and nicotine replacement therapies.

Research indicates that these types of activities can help smokers quit long term by 40 per cent, which will reduce hospital, medication, and physician costs.

Their goal is to enlist 4500 participants who want to quit smoking and want to ensure a 12 per cent quit rate.

Increasing the number of smoke-free Manitobans could save the province over 1 million dollars in health care costs annually.

Anyone over 18 can become part of the program by talking to a participating pharmacist. The program will initially focus on health regions where smoking rates are highest Northern (33 per cent), Interlake-Eastern (23 per cent) and Prairie Mountain (22 per cent).

The provincial smoking rate is 14.5 per cent, which is slightly below the Canadian average of 15.1 per cent.