While the number of smokers worldwide has fallen, just four countries are taking adequate prevention steps, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Switzerland is a laggard, at least according to most recent statistics.
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La prevención del tabaquismo presenta un panorama desigual
A report by the Geneva-based WHO said on Monday that Brazil, Mauritius, Turkey and the Netherlands were the only countries to have implemented all recommended anti-tobacco measures.
Eight countries are meanwhile just one policy step away from joining this select group: Ethiopia, Iran, Ireland, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico, New Zealand and Spain.
That said, the proportion of smokers worldwide fell from 22.8% in 2007 to 17% in 2021. “Slowly but surely, more and more people are being protected from the harms of tobacco,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
In Switzerland the smoking rate fell in the early 2000s but has since stagnated, according to the Federal Office for Public Health (FOPH); in 2017 it was 27.1%.
About a fifth of the population uses tobacco daily, while 8% are occasional smokers. There are more male smokers (31%) than female (23%).
Just over 20% of 15-19-year-olds smoke. The proportion is highest among the 20-24-year-old category (c. 40%). The rate then steadily declines with age.
Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the world, the WHO says. It kills 8.7 million people each year, including 1.3 million from second-hand smoke.
In Switzerland, tobacco causes 9,500 premature deaths each year, and the annual costs of medical treatment for tobacco-related diseases come to some CHF3 billion ($3.43 billion).
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