Economy
Kenya ranked 7th nation in tobacco use in Africa
Monday January 29 2024
Dennis Mwangangi shows a bundle of tobacco rolls ready for the market at Kilonzo Village in Kitui County on March 13, 2023. PHOTO | PIUS MAUNDU | NMG
Kenya has the seventh highest population of tobacco users aged 15 years and above in Africa, a new report published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
It said there were 3.1 million tobacco users in Kenya as of the end of 2022, representing about 5.7 percent of the national population with males dominating the habit at 89 percent.
Out of this, 2.7 million were male users while only 0.4 million were female consumers. Tobacco smokers made up the largest portion of the product’s users standing at 2.5 million or 81.9 percent of all users, with male smokers amounting to 2.4 million while females totalled 108,000.
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Countries that ranked above Kenya included South Africa with 8.4 million users, Algeria with 6.7 million, the Democratic Republic of Congo (5.7 million), Madagascar (4.6 million), Nigeria (3.5 million) and Ethiopia (3.4 million). In the region, Kenya led the pack trailed by Tanzania at 2.7 million users while Uganda had 1.3 million.
Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Cape Verde, Eswatini and Guinea-Bissau had the least number of users on the continent at 10,000, 17,000, 45,000, 67,000, and 91,000 respectively.
WHO notes that for adolescents aged between 13 and 15 in Africa, the average prevalence rate for tobacco smoking is six percent and two percent for boys and girls respectively.
On the global scene, the largest numbers came from the world’s most populated countries led by China with 292.5 million tobacco users, India (251.4 million), Indonesia (78.7 million) as well as the US (63.2 million).
On prevalence trends, Kenya dropped from a high of 15.5 in the year 2000 to a low of 9.7 as of 2020, with WHO projecting a further drop to 8.6 by next year and a low of 7.7 by 2030.
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Kenya is on track to achieve a 15-year relative reduction in tobacco use of up to 30 percent by next year, according to WHO.
“The downward trend in tobacco use currently seen at the global level is encouraging and reflects the efforts being made in many countries to implement tobacco control measures,” states WHO in the report.
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