Smoking could kill 1bn this century: WHO

BANGKOK: One billion people will die of tobacco-related diseases this century unless governments in rich and poor countries alike get serious about preventing smoking, top World Health Organization (WHO) experts said on Monday.

“Tobacco is a defective product. It kills half of its customers,” Douglas Bettcher, head of the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative, said at the start of an international conference in Bangkok to draw up a masterplan for the world to kick the habit.

“It kills 5.4 million people per year and half of those deaths are in developing countries. That’s like one jumbo jet going down every hour,” he said. With smoking rates in many developing countries on the rise, particularly among teenagers, that annual death toll would rise to 8.3 million within the next 20 years, he added.

However, if governments introduced measures such as aggressive taxation, banning cigarette advertising and making offices and public places totally tobacco-free, smoking rates could halve by 2050, he said. “It’s a completely preventable epidemic,” Bettcher said, citing countries such as Singapore, Australia and Thailand where tough anti-smoking laws have helped people to quit.

“If we do that, by 2050 we can save 200 million lives.”

Calls for pedal power: More bicycle riding and other lifestyle changes are urgently needed to reduce climate-altering carbon emissions that are damaging Asia’s health and could also threaten the economy, the World Health Organisation said on Monday.

Climate change contributes directly or indirectly to about 77,000 deaths per year in the region, according to WHO estimates. “So far the impact is on the health of the people. If the trend continues, it may have an impact on the economy,” said Shigeru Omi, WHO’s regional director for the Western Pacific. “Of course the threat is there. We should not wait for that to happen,” he told reporters at the start of a four-day conference on the impact of climate change and health in Southeast and East Asian countries.

Omi said urgent action was needed because Asia’s share of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions was expected to grow larger with the rapid economic expansion of China and India. “We have now reached a critical stage at which global warming already has seriously impacted lives and health and this problem will pose an even greater threat to mankind in coming decades if we fail to act now,” Omi said. “Everybody is interested in economic development, but somehow we have to strike the balance between this development and the preservation of nature,” Omi added. “And unless we do the action now, we will be faced with very serious consequences.” agencies

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