The world is still affected by passive smoking

A report from the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on December 9 said most of the world's population still suffer from the impact of passive smoking , the cause of 600,000 deaths a year, despite The ban on smoking in public places has been added to 7 more countries last year.

The WHO report said that in 2008, about 154 million people no longer had to smoke tobacco smoke at work, restaurants, pubs and other indoor spaces after adding Colombia, Gibuti, Guatemala, Mauritius, Panama, Turkey and Gambia carry out a comprehensive smoking ban.

However, only 5.4 of the world's population are protected by this comprehensive smoking ban in 2008, slightly higher than the 3.1% rate in 2007.

Dr. Ala Alwan, WHO General Manager for Non-communicable and Mental Health Diseases, points out: "In fact more than 94% of the global population is still not protected by comprehensive smoking ban. see a lot of work to do ".

According to him, urgent action is needed to protect people from illness and death from inhalation of cigarette smoke, especially those who do not smoke but still suffer from the smoke from smokers around.

Dr. Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO's Tobacco-Free Initiative, emphasized that WHO chose "non-smoking environment" as the focus of the 2009 Report, not only to highlight the harmful effects of passive smoking causing high mortality and new types of illnesses, which underscore economic losses of tens of billions of dollars each year.

Comprehensive control over tobacco will help countries reduce the number of people with heart disease, stroke, cancer and many other non-communicable diseases.

Smoking is still the leading cause of death to more than 5 million people every year.

The UN Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has been ratified by 170 countries, but if countries do not act to control it, the number of deaths every year can be as high as 8 million by 2030./.