Bloomberg allocates $200 million to accelerate global tobacco control. Against the backdrop of over 7 million deaths worldwide each year dinterventionso, the World Health Organization warns that tobacco policy intervention urgently need to be strengthened.
Key points:
- Bloomberg announced a $200 million fund to support global tobacco control efforts.
- Each year, more than 7 million people die from tobacco use worldwide.
- 83% of the global population has benefited from the World Health Organization’s tobacco control measures, but the progress varies.
WHO Conference on Tobacco Control Convenes
Bloomberg Announces Launch of $200 Million to Support Global Smoke-Free Goals
According to a report by United News of Bangladesh on June 26th, Michael Bloomberg, who is a global ambassador for non-communicable diseases and injuries at the World Health Organization (WHO), announced the launch of an accelerated fund worth 200 million US dollars to boost stalled efforts in tobacco control. This fund was announced at the World Conference on Tobacco Control held in Dublin and is intended to support countries that have encountered bottlenecks in their tobacco control efforts.
During the meeting, several delegations, including senior government officials and representatives from social groups from Bangladesh, expressed their commitment to establishing a smoke-free society. Bloomberg also pointed out that this initiative would “launch more life-saving efforts globally”, and he also commended the outstanding contributions of governments and non-governmental organizations from six countries in the field of tobacco control.
Each year, more than 7 million people die from tobacco use worldwide
This year, the World Health Organization’s Global Tobacco Epidemic 2025 report indicates that although certain achievements have been made, there are still significant gaps in global tobacco control efforts. Currently, three-quarters of the global population, approximately 6.1 billion people, are protected by the WHO’s MPOWER tobacco control measures, while this figure was only 1 billion in 2007.
The MPOWER tobacco control measures include monitoring tobacco use (Monitor), protecting the public from second-hand smoke (Protect), providing smoking cessation assistance (Offer), warning about the dangers of tobacco (Warn), prohibiting tobacco advertising and promotion (Enforce), and raising tobacco taxes (Raise).
However, nearly 40 countries still lack best practice measures, and 30 countries allow the sale of cigarettes without mandatory health warnings. Anti-tobacco activists are dissatisfied with the government’s negative attitude. Under Bloomberg’s initiative, since 2012, the sales of approximately 820 billion cigarettes have been reduced, saving 352 million lives.
The recipients of the Bloomberg Philanthropy Award in 2025 include the Indian Ministry of Health, which established a national smoking cessation hotline that handles 50,000 calls per month; Mauritius became the first country in Africa to adopt uniform packaging and Mexico fully implemented an advertising ban. Montenegro saw a 73% increase in tobacco taxes from 2017 to 2024, while the Philippines developed a monitoring model and Ukraine maintained an 80-85% compliance rate for smoke-free environments.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, warned that “the tobacco industry is still growing” and that intervention policies are under threat. Despite the progress made, since 2022, there have been 110 countries that have not carried out tobacco control activities, and only 33% of the global population has access to smoking cessation services paid for by the government.
