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Health damage in poor regions / WHO recommends increasing cigarette taxes

2025-04-30 21:24:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Health damage in poor regions / WHO recommends increasing cigarette taxes

More than a quarter of a million deaths among children under the age of five could have been avoided in low-income countries in a single year if they had increased their existing taxes on cigarettes, a new analysis has found.

Exposure to secondhand smoke can harm the health of young children, worsening asthma, impairing their lung function, and making babies more vulnerable to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). It can also affect them before they are born, increasing the risk of premature birth and low birth weight.

To help reduce smoking rates, the World Health Organization recommends that countries tax cigarettes at a rate of 75 percent of their retail price. But few low- and middle-income countries have actually done so.

According to new estimates, which were published in the journal The Lancet Public Health, about 281,000 deaths in children under the age of five could have been avoided with cigarette taxes at the level of 75% - 6% of the more than 4.7 million young children who died in 2021 in the 94 countries included in the study.

Findings show that this can protect children, especially the most vulnerable children.

Notably, the study found that higher cigarette taxes would increase child survival rates more among low-income people than among their wealthier peers, reducing disparities in tobacco-related child deaths in these regions. /CNA





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