London:
Second-hand smoke kills more than 600-thousand people worldwide every year, according to a new study published on Friday in the British medical journal The Lancet.
In the first look at the global impact of second-hand smoking, researchers analyzed data from 2004 for 192 countries.
They found 40 per cent of children and more than 30 per cent of non-smoking men and women regularly breathe in second-hand smoke.
Scientists then estimated that passive smoking causes about 379-thousand deaths from heart disease, 165-thousand deaths from lower respiratory disease, 36,900 deaths from asthma and 21,400 deaths from lung cancer a year.
Altogether, those account for about one per cent of the world's deaths.
The study was paid for by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Armando Peruga, a programme manager at the World Health Organisation's Tobacco-Free Initiative, who led the study, said the approximately 603-thousand deaths from second-hand smoking should be added to the 5.1 million deaths that smoking itself causes every year.
"The total burden of disease caused by tobacco whether smoking, passive or active is about six million," he said during an interview.
Peruga said the WHO was particularly concerned about the 165-thousand children who die of smoke-related respiratory infections, mostly in Southeast Asia and Africa.
"In regions like Africa and southeast Asia, in which there's a mix; the mix of tobacco exposure and low respiratory infections is a very lethal death," he said.
Children whose parents smoke have a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, ear infections, pneumonia, bronchitis and asthma.
Their lungs may also grow more slowly than kids whose parents don't smoke.
Peruga said he would be urging governments to "create one hundred percent smoke free environments in indoor places, both in public places and work places."
He said efforts to reduce exposure at home needed to increase.
Peruga and colleagues found the highest numbers of people exposed to second-hand smoke were in Europe and Asia.
The lowest rates of exposure were in the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa.
Second-hand smoke had its biggest impact on women, killing about 281-thousand.
In many parts of the world, women were at least 50 per cent more likely to be exposed to second-hand smoke than men.
In the first look at the global impact of second-hand smoking, researchers analyzed data from 2004 for 192 countries.
They found 40 per cent of children and more than 30 per cent of non-smoking men and women regularly breathe in second-hand smoke.
Scientists then estimated that passive smoking causes about 379-thousand deaths from heart disease, 165-thousand deaths from lower respiratory disease, 36,900 deaths from asthma and 21,400 deaths from lung cancer a year.
Altogether, those account for about one per cent of the world's deaths.
The study was paid for by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Armando Peruga, a programme manager at the World Health Organisation's Tobacco-Free Initiative, who led the study, said the approximately 603-thousand deaths from second-hand smoking should be added to the 5.1 million deaths that smoking itself causes every year.
"The total burden of disease caused by tobacco whether smoking, passive or active is about six million," he said during an interview.
Peruga said the WHO was particularly concerned about the 165-thousand children who die of smoke-related respiratory infections, mostly in Southeast Asia and Africa.
"In regions like Africa and southeast Asia, in which there's a mix; the mix of tobacco exposure and low respiratory infections is a very lethal death," he said.
Children whose parents smoke have a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, ear infections, pneumonia, bronchitis and asthma.
Their lungs may also grow more slowly than kids whose parents don't smoke.
Peruga said he would be urging governments to "create one hundred percent smoke free environments in indoor places, both in public places and work places."
He said efforts to reduce exposure at home needed to increase.
Peruga and colleagues found the highest numbers of people exposed to second-hand smoke were in Europe and Asia.
The lowest rates of exposure were in the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa.
Second-hand smoke had its biggest impact on women, killing about 281-thousand.
In many parts of the world, women were at least 50 per cent more likely to be exposed to second-hand smoke than men.
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