Smoking and impact on health

In 2005, the World Health Organization set a global goal to reduce the rate of death from chronic (noncommunicable) disease by an additional 2% every year. A major component in this strategy was a reduction in the use of tobacco products, as described in the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. According to recent estimates, over 10 yrs (2006–2015) 13.8 million deaths could be averted by the implementation of such interventions, at a cost of less than US$0.40 person?yr in low-income and lower middleincome countries, and US$0.50–1.00 person?yr in upper middle-income countries. According to estimates, approximately one third of tobacco-related deaths will be due to respiratory causes, one third to cancer and one third to cardiovascular diseases. Most of the burden of tobacco in the future will be in low-income countries.