Nearly 10,000 Cambodians die of smoking annually: expert

PHNOM PENH, March 7 (Xinhua) — Nearly 10,000 people died of smoking every year in Cambodia, Dr. Mom Kong, executive director of Cambodia Movement for Health (CMH), said Thursday.

Speaking in a consultative workshop on tobacco smoke at the Ministry of Social Affairs, he said that it was estimated that Cambodian smokers spent about 99 million U.S. dollars a year for buying cigarettes and tobacco.

Also, he said the expense on medical treatment for cancer patients caused by tobacco is much higher than that of tobacco expense.

“According to a preliminary study by the kingdom’s Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital, the cancer treatment for a cancer patient cost about 10,000 U.S. dollars,” he said.

Tobacco is seriously harmful to the health of smokers and other people when their smoke drifts around, other people breathe it in, he said.

Ith Samheng, Minister of Social Affairs, said according the study by the National Institute of Statistics, 80 percent of Cambodian children and 75 percent of woman are living in houses that have at least one family member as smoker.

The country has the population of about 14.5 million. Of the number, 7.5 million people are adults. According to a National Adult Tobacco Survey 2011, some 1.4 million adult Cambodians smoke cigarettes and other 550,000 people use smokeless tobacco (betel quid).