WHO: Smoking could kill 1 billion this century

Tobacco use increasing in developing countries, experts say

BANGKOK - One billion people will die of tobacco-related diseases this century unless governments in rich and poor countries alike get serious about preventing smoking, top World Health Organization experts said on Monday.

“Tobacco is a defective product. It kills half of its customers,” Douglas Bettcher, head of the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative, said at the start of an international conference in Bangkok to draw up a master plan for the world to kick the habit.

“It kills 5.4 million people per year and half of those deaths are in developing countries. That’s like one jumbo jet going down every hour,” he said.

With smoking rates in many developing countries on the rise, particularly among teenagers, that annual death toll would rise to 8.3 million within the next 20 years, he added.