Tobacco use continues to fall, but still ‘long way to go’

(United Nations News) The number of  users continues to decrease globally, going from 1.32 billion in 2015 to 1.30 billion last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.  

Of all WHO regions, the steepest decline is in the Americas, where the average user rate dropped from 21 per cent in 2010 to 16 per cent last year.

And according to the fourth WHO global tobacco trends report, that number is expected to continue to drop to 1.27 billion by 2025.   

Sixty countries are now on track to achieving the voluntary global target of a 30% per cent reduction by 2025, an increase from two years ago, when only 32 countries were on course. 

For WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, the numbers are very encouraging, but more work must be done. 

“We still have a long way to go, and tobacco companies will continue to use every trick in the book to defend the gigantic profits they make from peddling their deadly wares”, Tedros said.  

Read more at: United Nations News

Source: CARICOM TODAY