Smoking ‘rate’ high in Kuwait

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KUWAIT CITY, June 14: According to the report of the 7th edition of the “The Tobacco Atlas” – an anti smoking initiative emanating from the American Cancer Society – the average per capita consumption of cigarettes in Kuwait is 1,849 annually.

This is the second highest rate in the region after Lebanon with 1,955 cigarettes. Kuwait is followed by Libya with 1,764 cigarettes annually, the UAE with 438, and then Saudi Arabia with 485, reports Al-Rai daily.

The report revealed that there are 1.1 billion smokers in the world, and hundreds of millions who use other tobacco products. It insisted that the use of cigarettes continue to be a global epidemic. The report explained that there are devastating health and economic costs incurred through tobacco use globally.

In 2019, tobacco use caused more than 8.67 million deaths worldwide – over 6.53 million men and 2.14 million women – in addition to economic losses estimated at KD 2 trillion. Most deaths are attributed to smoking, but 1.3 million died from exposure to smoke or “secondhand smoking”. In 2019, nearly half of the tobacco-related deaths occurred in countries with high Human Development Index (HDI) scores. However, the report indicated that deaths from tobacco-related diseases are expected to increase in the coming years in countries with a low HDI score.

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