Over 100 million people worldwide use e-cigarettes, says WHO

Tobacco kills more than 7 million people every year, according to the WHO. Keystone-SDA

More than 100 million people worldwide use electronic cigarettes, according to a new assessment by the Geneva-based World Health Organisation (WHO). A total of 1.2 billion people were still smoking in 2024, a number that is on the decline.

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In a report published in Geneva on Monday, the WHO said “the tobacco epidemic is far from over”. In almost 25 years, however, the number of smokers has fallen by almost 200 million, thanks to measures taken by several countries.

But tobacco companies have gone on the “offensive with new nicotine products, aggressively targeting young people”, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The authorities “need to work faster and stronger in implementing proven tobacco-control policies,” he added.

“The world is going to miss the 2025 target” of a 30% reduction in the prevalence of smoking compared with 2010, a WHO official told the media. The decline over the next 15 years will reach 27% and, according to projections, only 15% in Switzerland.

With tobacco killing more than 7 million people every year, more than 60 countries will achieve the target. Most of these states are fully implementing the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Vaping bans in some countries

According to the WHO report, young people are nine times more likely to smoke than adults in the countries that provided the data. At least 15 million teenagers use e-cigarettes, while around 40 million of them smoke. Vaping is used by 86 million adults, most of them in rich countries.

E-cigarettes are being marketed as reducing smoking’s harmful effects on health and as an approach to avoiding smoking, but all they do is get young people used to nicotine at an earlier age, said a WHO official. The progress made could be called into question because of vaping.

“We have not seen any evidence that this changes” tobacco consumption, said one of the report’s authors. Some countries have decided to ban e-cigarettes.

Europe has greatest proportion of smokers

Generally, more women than men have given up smoking. They have even reached the 2025 target five years ahead of schedule. In the space of 15 years, the number of women smokers has fallen from 270 million to 206 million. Prevalence has fallen from 11% to just over 6%.

Men, on the other hand, are unlikely to reach the 2025 target before 2031. They account for more than four out of five smokers, or just under 1 billion people. Prevalence has fallen from over 41% to just under 33%, a rate of progress that the WHO says is “too slow”.

By region, Europe has become the region with the greatest proportion of smokers, at close to one adult in four. Africa has the smallest proportion, with 9.5%.

The WHO is calling for a crackdown on companies targeting young people, an increase in tobacco taxation, a ban on advertising (an issue for which Switzerland is regularly criticised) and regulation of e-cigarettes. In countries with strong policies for smoke-free public spaces, “young people grow up without ever seeing smoking in public”, said one of the report’s authors. Millions more people need to give up smoking, the WHO added.

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Translated from French with DeepL/gw

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