Unless efforts are increased to stem the global tobacco epidemic, which currently kills 5.4 million people a year from lung cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses, the toll will rise to more than eight million by 2030, with most deaths occurring in poor countries, a World Health Organization report warns.
“Tragically, with more than 80% of those deaths occurring in the developing world, the epidemic will strike hardest in countries whose rapidly growing economies offer their citizens the hope of a better life,” said Margaret Chan, WHO director general.
But Dr Chan in a preface to the report argues that “prompt action is crucial” now to prevent this dire scenario.
“We cannot let this happen,” the WHO chief says, and she calls on governments around the globe to take “urgent action” to implement six key tobacco control policies.
The six strategies are to monitor the epidemic and prevention policies; to protect people from secondhand smoke; to offer help to people who want to quit; to warn everyone of the dangers of tobacco; to enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship; and to raise taxes on tobacco.
The expert study also recommends the integration of tobacco cessation policies into primary health care; the availability of well staffed quit lines through free phone numbers; and the availability of pharmacological treatment, such as nicotine replacement therapy.
The shift of the epidemic to the developing world, the study says, results from “a global tobacco industry strategy to target young people and adults” in these countries, and adds that the targeting of young women is one of the “most ominous potential developments of the epidemic’s growth.”
The report, which draws on country by country data from 179 member states, concludes that not a single country has fully implemented all the key control measures, although it notes that there has been progress in recent years.
“Virtually every country needs to do more to stop the tobacco epidemic,” it says.
The report found that 74 countries “still allow smoking in healthcare institutions, and roughly the same number of countries still allow smoking in schools.”
It critically notes that the lack of funding for the global fight against the tobacco epidemic “is indefensible,” and goes on to highlight that rich countries collect $110bn (£55bn; €74bn) in tobacco taxes but spend only $321m, or 340 times less, on tobacco control.
Similarly, in middle income nations, revenues from taxes on tobacco are more than 4200 times greater than the amounts spent; and in low income countries revenues are more than 9100 greater than spending on control.
Other key findings include that only 5% of the world’s population are protected by national smoke-free legislation and that only 15 countries, representing 6% of the world’s population, require pictorial warnings that cover at least 30% of the surface of tobacco packaging.
The Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008 is available at www.who.int.