WHO Global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco use 2000–2025

World Health Organisation (WHO) published the 4^th edition of Global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco use 2000-2025.

Highlights

• As per the report, South-East Asia Region achieved the fastest rate of decline in use of tobacco. Average prevalence of smoking among men decreased to 25% in 2020, as against 50% in 2000.
• In South-East Region, tobacco smoking among women decreased from 8.9% in 2000 to 1.6% in the year 2020.
• India and Nepal are the countries, which is likely to achieve 30% relative reduction in tobacco use in order to meet Global NCD action target plan by 2025.
• WHO report highlights that, if tobacco control efforts continues with the current level, smoking rates in this region can reach as low as 11% in 2025. It will be the second lowest Regional average rate after Africa, that is 7.5% in 2025.
• The South-East Asia Region has highest rates of tobacco use, that is 29 percent of the population. It accounts for 432 million users.
• This region is also the home to 266 million smokeless tobacco users out of 355 million across the globe.

How this progress was achieved?

• This progress was the result of effective implementation of FCTC and MPOWER package of WHO as well as a set of six cost-effective & high impact measures in order to help countries in reducing the demand and supply of tobacco.
• Tobacco use is one among the key risk factors of noncommunicable diseases and effective tobacco control is significant to prevent and control NCDs. It is a flagship priority of this region since 2014.