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Backgrounder: World No Tobacco Day

Xinhua, May 31, 2015 Adjust font size:

In marking the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), which falls on May 31 every year, and stepping up global efforts for tobacco control, the World Health Organization (WHO) has designated the theme of WNTD 2015 as "Stop illicit trade of tobacco products".

The illicit tobacco trade offers tobacco products at lower prices and allures more younger tobacco users and disadvantaged groups in society to indulge in smoking, which poses a major threat to public health.

According to WHO statistics, the illicit tobacco market may account for as much as one in every 10 cigarettes consumed globally. Almost all countries throughout the world are subject to illicit tobacco trade in some form or another.

To control the tobacco effectively and decrease its harm to public health, WHO ratified the first global tobacco restriction treaty of the world -- the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) -- in May 2003, which came into force in February 2005.

To implement the 15th item of the FCTC on ending the illicit tobacco products trade, WHO adopted the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products in November 2012.

Smoking is harmful to health. Medical research shows that smoking is the main cause of cardiovascular, cancer, emphysema and other noninfectious diseases. Smokers are more susceptible to tuberculosis, pneumonia and other infectious diseases.

To highlight the health risks associated with tobacco use, WHO designated April 7 as the World No Tobacco Day in November 1987, which went into effect in 1988. Since 1989, the WNTD has been changed to May 31 every year.

The day is further intended to draw attention to the widespread prevalence of tobacco use and to negative health effects of tobacco, which lead to nearly 6 million deaths each year worldwide, including 600,000 deaths as a result of exposure of non-smokers to second-hand smoke.

If no measures were adopted in response, the number of people who die annually from diseases caused by smoking annually would top 8 million by the year 2030, with more than 80 percent of the preventable deaths occurring among people living in low- and middle-income countries. Endi