Surging numbers of children using e-cigarettes: WHO

AFP | Geneva

Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com

E-cigarettes are fuelling an “alarming” new wave of nicotine addiction, with millions of children now hooked on vaping, the World Health Organization warned Monday.

In countries that have the data, children are on average nine times more likely than adults to vape, the WHO said.

The UN health agency said the industry was promoting vapes as supposedly less harmful products than cigarettes -- but in fact was aggressively targeting young people and getting children addicted.

More than 100 million people are vaping, according to the WHO’s first global estimate of e-cigarette use.

“The numbers are alarming,” the agency said.

They include at least 86 million adults, mostly in high-income countries, and at least 15 million children aged 13 to 15.

“E-cigarettes are fuelling a new wave of nicotine addiction,” Etienne Krug, the WHO’s director of health determinants, promotion and prevention, said in a statement.

“They are marketed as harm reduction but, in reality, are hooking kids on nicotine earlier and risk undermining decades of progress.”

Globally, people are smoking less, with the number of tobacco users dropping from 1.38 billion in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024, while the world’s population has swelled.