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Passive smoking leads to 600,000 deaths a year
Smoking kills those who smoke … but it also kills many non-smokers. According to a WHO study, passive smoking leads to 600,000 deaths each year around the world. No fewer than 165,000 of those who die are children – which is a very high price to pay.
Two major lines of reform should now help to reduce the number of these deaths, which are obviously all avoidable. The authors therefore recommend “strengthening the laws restricting the use of tobacco in public places” and “educating people in order to reduce smoking in the home”.
The very young are particularly susceptible to passive smoking. In developing countries, “children are often exposed to cigarettes, if only because their close relatives smoke at home”, the WHO points out. As they are unable to avoid this exposure to cigarette smoke, they run an increased risk of lung cancer, asthma and cardiovascular accident. Furthermore, two thirds of deaths associated with passive smoking occur in south-east Asia and in Africa. Each year, across the world, five million seven hundred thousand adults and children die as a result of both direct and passive smoking.
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