Egypt’s government has announced its decision to ban smoking cigarettes and shisha (also known as argilleh or hookah) from all public spaces. According to Egypt’s Minister of Health Adel El-Adawi, the decision to ban all forms of tobacco in public as the burden on the state through health costs associated with smoking have risen to an all-time high. With 30 percent (or 27 million) of Egypt’s population currently using tobacco products and 50 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people exposed to second-hand smoking, the number of deaths from cancer caused by tobacco and tuberculosis has reached new levels. According to the WHO in 2009, one third of cancer deaths in Egypt were related to tobacco consumption. In 2015, the Health Ministry reported the number of deaths from lung cancer, heart disease and other non-infectious diseases had reached 170,000 per year, with lung cancer playing a significant role. The WHO added that over the past 30 years, the number of smokers in Egypt increased over twice as fast as the population. This has resulted in more than 19 billion cigarettes smoked annually in Egypt, making it the largest market in the Arab world…
