TEHRAN – Iran is one of the eight countries that are soon to join the leaders in tobacco control by adopting the World Health Organization’s MPOWER policy.

In line with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), WHO introduced the MPOWER measures in 2008. MPOWER is a set of six cost-effective and high-impact measures that help countries reduce the demand for tobacco. These measures include: Monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies; Protecting people from tobacco smoke; Offering help to quit tobacco use; Warning about the dangers of tobacco; Enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship; and Raising taxes on tobacco.

The seven other countries are Ethiopia, Ireland, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico, New Zealand, and Spain.

If fully implemented and enforced, the key WHO FCTC measures represented by MPOWER could reduce smoking prevalence in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.

A new World Health Organization report highlights that 5.6 billion people – 71% of the world’s population – are now protected with at least one best practice policy to help save lives from deadly tobacco – five times more than in 2007.

In the last 15 years since WHO’s MPOWER tobacco control measures were introduced globally, smoking rates have fallen. Without this decline, there would be an estimated 300 million more smokers in the world today.

This WHO Report on the global tobacco epidemic is focused on protecting the public from second-hand smoke, highlighting that almost 40% of countries now have completely smoke-free indoor public places.

The report rates progress in tobacco control, showing that two more countries, Mauritius and the Netherlands, have achieved a best-practice level in all MPOWER measures, a feat that only Brazil and Türkiye had accomplished until now.

“These data show that slowly but surely, more and more people are being protected from the harms of tobacco by WHO’s evidence-based best-practice policies,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

“I congratulate Mauritius on becoming the first country in Africa, and the Netherlands on becoming the first in the European Union to implement the full package of WHO tobacco control policies at the highest level. WHO stands ready to support all countries to follow their example and protect their people from this deadly scourge.”

“With a strong political commitment, we have made great progress in tobacco control policies in Mauritius. Our country has adopted the MPOWER strategy and is moving resolutely towards a smoke-free country,” stated Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, the prime minister of the Republic of Mauritius.

Maarten van Ooijen, State Secretary for Health, Welfare and Sports for the Netherlands said, "Civil society organizations, health experts and medical professionals are strong driving forces behind everything that we are achieving with regard to tobacco control in the Netherlands.

They deserve the primary credit for the praise that our country receives from the World Health Organization. Although we are making progress in reducing smoking prevalence and improving our tobacco control policy we also still have a long way to go. Together we will keep fighting for a smoke-free generation by 2040!"

Smoke-free public spaces are just one policy in the set of effective tobacco control measures, MPOWER, to help countries implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and curb the tobacco epidemic.

Smoke-free environments help people breathe clean air, shield the public from deadly second-hand smoke, motivate people to quit, denormalize smoking, and help prevent young people from ever starting to smoke or use e-cigarettes.

“While smoking rates have been going down, tobacco is still the leading cause of preventable death in the world – largely due to relentless marketing campaigns by the tobacco industry,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

“As this report shows, our work is making a big difference, but much more remains to be done. By helping more countries implement smart policies, backed by public opinion and science, we’ll be able to improve public health and save millions of more lives.”

There is still much work to be done, 44 countries remain unprotected by any of WHO’s MPOWER measures and 53 countries still do not have complete smoking bans in healthcare facilities. Meanwhile, only about half of countries have smoke-free private workplaces and restaurants.

“WHO urges all countries to put in place all of the MPOWER measures at the best-practice level to fight the tobacco epidemic, which kills 8.7 million people globally, and push back against the tobacco and nicotine industries, who lobby against these public health measures,” said Dr. Ruediger Krech, WHO, Director for Health Promotion.

Around 1.3 million people die from second-hand smoke every year. All of these deaths are entirely preventable. People exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke are at risk of dying from heart disease, stroke, respiratory diseases, type 2 diabetes, and cancers.

This report demonstrates that all countries irrespective of income levels can drive down the demand for deadly tobacco, achieve major wins for public health, and save economies billions of dollars in health care and productivity costs.

Today, more than half of all countries, with nearly 40% of the world’s population (2.8 billion people), have implemented at least one MPOWER measure to the highest level of achievement.

Increasing tobacco tax and prices has proven to be one of the most effective, yet least utilized tobacco control measures that countries can use to address various issues.

For example, by increasing prices, taxation protects the poor from exposure to a product that kills and causes disease. Taxation, in fact, is the most effective means to motivate current, mostly male, tobacco users to quit.

This is especially so for lower-income populations, and tobacco users in low- and middle-income countries, where 75% of smokers live. And by stopping people from smoking, tobacco taxes also reduce exposure to second-hand smoke among non-smokers, including children and women.

The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing over 8 million people a year around the world. More than 7 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 1.3 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.

All forms of tobacco use are harmful, and there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco. Cigarette smoking is the most common form of tobacco use worldwide. Other tobacco products include waterpipe tobacco, cigars, cigarillos, heated tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, pipe tobacco, bidis and kreteks, and smokeless tobacco products.

Around 80% of the 1.3 billion tobacco users worldwide live in low- and middle-income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is heaviest. Tobacco use contributes to poverty by diverting household spending from basic needs such as food and shelter to tobacco. This spending behavior is difficult to curb because tobacco is so addictive.

The economic costs of tobacco use are substantial and include significant health care costs for treating the diseases caused by tobacco use as well as the lost human capital that results from tobacco-attributable morbidity and mortality.

MG