July 23, 2008 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Michael R. Bloomberg and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced on Wednesday a new $375-million joint commitment to fight tobacco use in poor and middle-income countries.
The new funds, announced at a press conference in New York City, come on top of $125-million that was announced by Mr. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, two years ago to fight tobacco use in developing countries. Those funds have already been spent.
Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation will commit $250-million over four years. The Gates Foundation will spend $125-million over five years.
“In an age of unprecedented technological achievement, in an era of stunning breakthroughs in health and science, we continue to lose too many mothers and fathers, too many friends and people we care about, to the global tobacco epidemic,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
By the end of this century, tobacco use will kill one billion people, according to the World Health Organization.
Anticipating a Shift
Currently deaths due to tobacco use are split 50/50 between wealthy countries and developing countries, but that percentage is expected to change as smoking in developing countries accelerates.
By 2030, 70 percent of the deaths due to smoking are expected to come from developing countries.
Most of the funds will be spent on “Mpower,” a campaign that Mr. Bloomberg and the World Health Organization announced in February.
The campaign coordinates efforts by the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, the World Health Organization, the World Lung Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
The campaign’s name is an acronym of its six strategies:
Monitoring tobacco use and control Protecting people by enforcing “smoke-free” laws Offering smokers nicotine replacement and counseling programs Warning on cigarette packs about the hazards of smoking Enforcing bans on tobacco advertising and promotion And raising the price of tobacco through taxes
Only about 5 percent of the countries in the world have antismoking measures like the ones advocated by the campaign.
Global health is the largest area of spending for the $38-billion Gates Foundation, but the foundation has not historically put much money into the fight against smoking.
Mr. Gates, in his first public appearance since joining his foundation full-time as chairman, said he was happy to see Mr. Bloomberg take the lead on fighting global tobacco use two years ago with his $125-million effort.
Some of the Gates Foundation’s money will be used to fight tobacco use in Africa, where smoking rates are increasing but lower than in many other developing countries.
Mr. Bloomberg met with Bill and Melinda Gates in their home in Seattle last year to figure out a way to work together in the campaign against smoking.
“It will be a tough fight and a long term fight, but a very important one,” Mr. Gates said.
