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Agence France-Presse

The number of smokers worldwide has dropped steadily in recent years, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday, urging countries to step up control measures further to kick deadly tobacco addiction.
In 2020, some 1.30 billion people were using tobacco globally, down from 1.32 billion two years earlier, the WHO said in a fresh report.
And that number, it said, is expected to dwindle to 1.27 billion by 2025, indicating a decrease of some 50 million tobacco users over a seven-year-period, even as the global population has swelled.

The report showed that while nearly a third of the global population over the age of 15 used tobacco products back in 2000, only around a fifth is expected to be doing so by 2025.
“It is very encouraging to see fewer people using tobacco each year,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
But “we still have a long way to go, and tobacco companies will continue to use every trick in the book to defend the gigantic profits they make from peddling their deadly wares”.
E-cigarettes don’t help you quit and may damage your lungs, says study
Tobacco use is estimated to kill more than 8 million people each year, most of them directly due to their own tobacco use, while 1.2 million of them are non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke, according to WHO numbers.
Tuesday’s report cautioned that the annual numbers of deaths would continue climbing for some time even as tobacco use declines “because tobacco kills its users and people exposed to its emissions slowly”.
The report noted that 60 countries were now on track to reduce tobacco use by 30 per cent between 2010 and 2025.

When WHO published its last report on global tobacco trends two years ago, only 32 countries were on track to do so.
“We are seeing great progress in many countries”, said Ruediger Krech, head of the WHO’s health promotion department, but “this success is fragile”.
The report called on countries to scale up their use of recognised measures to reduce tobacco use, including enforcing advertising bans, plastering health warnings on cigarette packages, raising tobacco taxes and providing assistance to those who want to quit.
The WHO calculated that investing just US$1.68 per capita each year in cessation interventions like providing advice via text message could help 152 million tobacco users successfully quit by 2030.
A smoking population and an ageing society: what does it mean for China?
While the numbers are coming down, the report, which did not include electronic cigarette use, highlighted that 36.7 per cent of all men and 7.8 per cent of the world’s women were still using tobacco products last year.
Even more concerning, it said that 38 million teens between the ages of 13 and 15 were also doing so.
That accounts for 10 per cent of all adolescents in that age group, with boys far more likely to smoke than girls.
Europe is the region of the world where most women use tobacco products – a full 18 per cent, the report showed.
The Western Pacific region is where most men smoke, with over 45 per cent of men expected to still be using tobacco there by 2025.


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Smoking and vaping

Number of smokers falling, but countries must keep up fight to cut tobacco use: WHO

Tobacco use is estimated to kill more than 8 million people each year. Photo: SCMP / Sam Tsang

A smoker is engulfed by vapours as he smokes an electronic vaping machine during lunch time in central London on August 9, 2017. (Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

A cigarettes vendor sits behind a pile of empty cartons of foreign and local cigarette brands on a Hanoi street on 31 May 2001 as Vietnam observes a no-Smoking Week in response to the World Non-Tobacco Day. Despite an official ban on importing and selling in local market foreign cigarette brands which are not made in Vietnam. Vietnamese smokers can easily buy any main foreign brands at great prices thanks to persistent cigarettes smuggling activities carried out through its borders with Laos, Cambodia and China. AFP PHOTO/HOANG DINH NAM/na. / AFP PHOTO / HOANG DINH NAM

Smokers with Covid-19 at higher risk of hospitalisation: study

Until now, experts said, there has been conflicting data on the extent to which smoking affects the risk of hospital admission from Covid-19. Photo: TNS

China must move quickly and firmly to curb ‘rising tide of cancer deaths’ from smoking: health researchers

Researchers are concerned tobacco-related deaths in China will rise. Photo: AFP

epa06164217 Customers enjoy smoking tobacco and cigarettes while drinking tea at the 100 year old Guanyin Pavilion teahouse in Pengzhen of Sichuan province, China, 23 August 2017. (issued 26 August) Pengzhen, some twenty kilometers from the city of Chengdu, is home to a hundred year old teahouse whose preservation of traditional decoration and tea culture draws many people to enjoy the peaceful, idle atmosphere whilst having a break from busy, city life. A facet ChengduÕs indigenous culture, old teahouses are disappearing as society undergoes transformational urban development. Nevertheless, this old teahouse, located near Willow River in Shuangliu county, Chengdu, persists in maintaining the traditional culture. At 4:30 am the kettles crackle on a charcoal stove as regulars crowd inside an ancient Chinese temple-turned-teahouse. The tea served here is purchased for a modest one RMB (0.12 euros) per cup and has a sweet flavor because the water comes from a well deep inside the tea hous

Trying to quit smoking? E-cigarettes won’t help, and may do more harm to lungs and make you relapse, study suggests

E-cigarettes are often though of as safer alternatives to tobacco products, but a new study contradicts this. Photo: Shutterstock

A study looked at whether vaping was a safer alternative to smoking and if users went back to smoking cigarettes. Photo: Shutterstock

Scientists are still studying the long-term health effects of using e-cigarettes. Photo: Shutterstock

Smoking control has helped Hongkongers live longer, new study shows, and researchers want lawmakers to stub out sales of e-cigarettes next

A group of elderly men sitting on a bench behind metal barricades that says ’No Entry', Tsim Sha Tsui. 04SEP20 SCMP / K. Y. Cheng

Hongkongers have the highest life expectancy in the world. Photo: Bloomberg

Smoking headed for extinction in many countries by 2050, report says

Tobacco use among men is on the decline for the first time on record. Photo: TNS

FILE - In this Aug. 28, 2019, file photo, a man exhales while smoking an e-cigarette in Portland, Maine. Health officials investigating a nationwide outbreak of vaping-related illnesses have, for the first time, listed the vape brands that are most commonly linked to hospitalizations. Most of the nearly 2,300 people who has suffered lung damage were vaping liquids that contain THC, the high-inducing part of marijuana. In a report released Friday, Dec. 6 the government listed the THC-containing products that patients most often said they'd been using, noting that some patients vaped more than one. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

News

World


The number of tobacco users is expected to dwindle to 1.27 billion by 2025, a WHO report says
The Western Pacific region is where most men (45 per cent) smoke, while Europe is the region where most women use tobacco products (18 per cent)



The WHO calculated that investing just US$1.68 per capita each year in cessation interventions could help 152 million tobacco users successfully quit by 2030.


World Health Organization (WHO)

Wellness

Number of smokers falling, but countries must keep up fight to cut tobacco use: WHO

The number of tobacco users is expected to dwindle to 1.27 billion by 2025, a WHO report says The Western Pacific region is where most men (45 per cent) smoke, while Europe is the region where most women use tobacco products (18 per cent)

The number of tobacco users is expected to dwindle to 1.27 billion by 2025, a WHO report says

The Western Pacific region is where most men (45 per cent) smoke, while Europe is the region where most women use tobacco products (18 per cent)