UN health agency signals tobacco might be reaching burn-out among men

• “For the first time the number of tobacco users is declining worldwide”, Dr Ruediger Krech, Director of the Department of Health Promotion at the World Health Organization (WHO), told journalists on Wednesday in Geneva.
• In 2018, there were slightly more than a billion males using tobacco around the world, “over 40 million more than in the year 2000,” he said. “But now for the first time, we are seeing declines in use, with WHO projecting that there will be at least two million fewer men using tobacco in 2020, and five million less by 2025.”
• Describing the development as a “powerful shift in the global tobacco epidemic” in view of the fact that more than four in five smokers are male, Dr Krech explained that it mirrors “consistent reductions” by 100 million women since the turn of the century.
• This progress proves that national tobacco control measures work, Dr Krech insisted, citing taxation and controlled smoking areas in public places, and other legislation that prevents children from being exposed to tobacco.

Source: UN News

 

 

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