2023-07-31 13:32:17
“Tobacco is taboo, we will all overcome it”. Little by little, the precept of the Unknowns is spreading across the globe: in fifteen years, the global smoking rate has fallen from 22.8% in 2007 to 17.0% in 2021, according to the WHO. In a report published on Monday, the World Health Organization highlights the fact that 5.6 billion people, or 71% of the world’s population, are now protected by at least one tobacco control measure, five times more than in 2007.
“Slowly but surely more and more people are being protected from the harms of tobacco,” its director, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement. The WHO set up its MPOWER program in 2008, a set of measures to help countries reduce the demand for tobacco, around six policies: protect the population once morest tobacco smoke, increase taxes, monitor consumption, offer help to those who want to quit, warn of the dangers and enforce the ban on tobacco .
Brazil, Turkey, Mauritius and the Netherlands, top of the class
The WHO estimates that without the measures taken since by countries, there would be 300 million more smokers in the world today. Each year, some 8.7 million people die worldwide from tobacco-related diseases, of which 1.3 million are victims of passive smoking. “It’s not just numbers. These measures have literally changed our lives,” noted the Director of the Department of Health Promotion at WHO, Dr Ruediger Krech, at a press conference.
However, 2.3 billion people in 44 countries are still not protected by any of the measures recommended by the WHO, and 53 countries have still not imposed a complete ban on smoking in health care establishments. And only Brazil, Turkey, Mauritius and the Netherlands have reached the level of best practices with regard to tobacco control, according to the WHO, which denounces the pressure exerted by this industry. “For eight countries, all that is missing is a policy from the MPOWER program to join the leaders in tobacco control: Spain, Ethiopia, Iran, Ireland, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico and New Zealand,” said Dr. Krech.
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