Only four nations doing enough to stub out smoking: WHO

Only four countries -- Brazil, Mauritius, the Netherlands and Turkiye -- have adopted all the anti-tobacco measures recommended in the fight against the "deadly scourge" of smoking, the World Health Organization said Monday. 

In a fresh report, the UN health agency urged countries to scale up their use of recognised measures to reduce tobacco use, including enforcing advertising bans, plastering health warnings on cigarette packages, raising tobacco taxes and providing assistance to those who want to quit.

It said Mauritius and the Netherlands had now joined Brazil and Turkiye in implementing all of its recommended measures. WHO said 5.6 billion people, or 71 percent of the world's population, were now protected by at least one tobacco control measure -- five times more than in 2007.