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Last Update: Thursday, 11 July 2013 KSA 09:04 - GMT 06:04
WHO: Nearly six million die from smoking every year
Thursday, 11 July 2013
AFP, Panama City
Despite public health campaigns, smoking remains the leading avoidable cause of
death worldwide, killing almost six million people a year, mostly in low- and
middle-income countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
If current trends hold, the number of deaths blamed on tobacco use will rise to
eight million a year in 2030, the WHO said in a briefing unveiled at a
conference in Panama.
About 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths forecast for 2030 are expected in
low- and middle-income countries, the report added.
"If we do not close ranks and ban tobacco advertising, promotion and
sponsorship, adolescents and young adults will continue to be lured into
tobacco consumption by an ever-more aggressive tobacco industry," said WHO
Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan.
"Every country has the responsibility to protect its population from
tobacco-related illness, disability and death."
Among the dead this year, five million were tobacco users or former users,
while more than 600,000 died from second-hand smoke, according to the WHO.
Tobacco use is believed to have caused the deaths of 100 million people in the
20th century.
Barring dramatic change, the tally for this century could soar to one billion
people, the WHO warned.
"We know that only complete bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and
sponsorship are effective," Dr. Douglas Bettcher, the Director of the WHO's
Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases department, told the Panama conference.
"Countries that introduced complete bans together with other tobacco control
measures have been able to cut tobacco use significantly within only a few
years," he said.
The report noted that 2.3 billion people from 92 countries benefit from some
form of smoking restrictions, more than double the number who did five years
ago.
However, that figure still represents just a third of the world's population,
it said.
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