WHO report on ‘Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008’ launched
By Khalid Amin

ISLAMABAD—World Health Organization (WHO) in its new report on ‘Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008’ launched on Thursday called on nations to implement life-saving tobacco control policies.
According to WHO, the report finds that tobacco use alreadykills 5.4 million people a year and the epidemic is worsening, especially in the developing world where more than 80 percent of tobacco-caused deaths will occur in the coming decades.
Unless urgent action is taken, one billion people will dieworldwide from tobacco use this century, it says.
The report details the immense scope of the global tobacco epidemic, recommends a set of interventions and suggests governments to reduce tobacco use. The report provides details on how governments are doing to implement the various interventions. It says clearly that tobacco is the leading cause of premature death in the world today, and theepidemic is worsening especially in the developing world.
It documents six policy initiatives that have been proven to reduce tobacco use. If adopted, these interventions can save millions of lives.
The report is the first ever comprehensive look at what theworld’s nations are doing to address this public health epidemic, and it demonstrates starkly that not enough is being done to reduce the number of people who will die from tobacco.
All of the report’s recommended measures are scientifically proven, highly cost-effective policies that are part of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the international tobacco control treaty that became international law in 2005.
To date, 152 nations have ratified the treaty, but WHO finds that only five percent of the world’s population lives in a country that has adopted at least one of these anti-tobacco strategies.
The global tobacco epidemic does not just affect the healthof millions of people in, it is also an economic threat that costs local and national economies billions of dollars each year.