Increasing Revenue & Protecting Public Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The World Health Organization (WHO) says that tobacco use claims about eight million lives a year. Credit: WHOBy Hana Ross and Sophapan Ratanachena-McWhortorCAPETOWN / BANGKOK, Aug 2 2021 (IPS) The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on millions of families and damaged the economy of countries around the globe. Rich countries with higher vaccination rates have opened up their economy ahead of poor countries that are still struggling to fight the pandemic. Yet, there is a simple recipe to boost the population’s health and increase revenue to pay for vaccines and economic recovery. This simple recipe calls for just one ingredient – the implementation of evidence-based tobacco tax policy. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tax and price measures are the most effective means to reduce the demand for tobacco which in in turn will save lives, reduce government expenditures on healthcare, and increase tax revenue. Smoking is now a recognized risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes. Therefore, countries with high smoking prevalence such as Indonesia and Vietnam are quite vulnerable during the pandemic. Many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) struggle to reduce their persistently high level of tobacco use while spending a significant amount of their healthcare budget on tobacco-related diseases. These preventable expenditures along with pandemic-related expenses are putting the Ministries of Finance in a quandary. ASEAN countries are lagging behind...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Development & Aid Editors' Choice Featured Global Headlines Health Inequity IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse Poverty & SDGs TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news