Page last updated at 10:34 GMT, Tuesday, 17 November 2009

Africa heading for 'smoking epidemic'

By Helena Merriman
BBC News

Kenyan office worker lights cigarette in a designated smoking area in Nairobi's central business district
Since the smoking ban in Kenya, people can only smoke in special zones

At Jeevanjee gardens in Nairobi, smokers gather during their lunch hour to read, chat and light up.

It is one of the few zones in the Kenyan capital where people can smoke in public, since the ban on smoking in public came into effect in 2007.

As he takes a puff, one of the young men describes his habit.

"I've been smoking for 40 years but I hate it," he says.

"I have often tried to give up by throwing cigarettes into the toilet, but I have not succeeded in stopping smoking."

He says he smokes about 40 a day, but would smoke more if he had more money.

"It is expensive for me so I sometimes go without lunch."

According to some researchers, tobacco addiction is rapidly increasing in Africa.



"Africa is in the area of the pre-epidemic and so we should prevent the epidemic," he told the BBC World Service.






'Preventing the epidemic'




Egypt is unlikely to introduce a smoking ban in public places






'They lobby and lobby'

Dr Ngoma says that while many governments in Africa have signed up to legislation on tobacco, it is difficult to enforce those laws.


Adam Spielman
Tobacco industry analyst

He also blames advertisers who he says are hooking in Africa's younger generations.

"Tobacco companies are targeting poor, developing countries in Africa."










Raising prices

So just how important is the African market to tobacco companies?

Adam Spielman, a tobacco industry analyst with Citigroup, says that the African market forms around 10% or less of the profits of the biggest companies, but that this area is growing.

While he says that there are looser advertising restrictions on the continent, he says tobacco companies are not as concerned with growing volume, as long as they can put their prices up.


But Mr Spielman says that he expects that over time, increasing advertising restrictions and bigger health warnings will come into place in African countries.

But in the meantime, as long as there are smokers who will sacrifice lunch for a packet of cigarettes, there will always be consumers.

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