Turkmenistan Has the World's Lowest Proportion of Smokers: WHO Chief Margaret Chan

Smoking is injurious to health and harms literally every organ of the body. Statistics reveal that 31.1% of the global male population over the age of 15 years smoked in 2012, while 6.2% of females were smokers. The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Margaret Chan has revealed that former Soviet Turkmenistan is the country with the world's lowest proportion of smokers. While speaking at a health forum in Turkmenistan's capital Ashgabat, Chan said, "Recently a WHO overview showed that in Turkmenistan only 8% of the population smokes. This is the lowest national indicator in the world."

Chan noted that Turkmenistan ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2011 by which time it had already banned smoking in public places. Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, Head of the Convention Secretariat, challenged the health obsessed Central Asian state to drive smoking down to 5% of the population in the coming years.

In 1990, 27% of Turkmen males over 15 years and 1% of females smoked. Ten years later Turkmenistan banned smoking in public places, state buildings and the army, as well as all forms of tobacco advertising.

Source-AFP