REUTERS/Phil NobleA Liverpool supporter watches play throughout their English Premier League soccer match against Manchester United at Anfield in Liverpool, northern England, March 6, 2011.
LONDON, (Reuters) - Europe has the world’s highest rates of drinking and smoking, and much more than half its men and women are as well fat, placing them at higher threat of heart illness, cancer and other deadly illnesses, well being officials warned on Wednesday.
In a report on wellness in its European Area, the Planet Health Organization (WHO) said that when many nations had lowered danger factors for premature death, prices of obesity, tobacco use and alcohol consumption “stay alarmingly higher”.
“Europeans drink and smoke much more than everyone else. We are globe champions — and it is not a fantastic record,” said Claudia Stein, WHO Europe’s head of information and facts, proof, study and innovation.
She said this could have the most critical effect on young men and women, considering the fact that their lives could be shortened unless something is accomplished to cut down consumption of tobacco, alcohol and calories.
Just below 60 % of men and women in the WHO’s European region are either overweight or obese, and 30 % use tobacco. Some 11 liters of pure alcohol is drunk per person per year.
The report found that for now, life expectancy is escalating across Europe and the area is on track for lowering premature mortality by 1.5 % a year until 2020.
This indicates that the number of persons whose lives are cut short by cardiovascular illnesses, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory illnesses is steadily declining, it mentioned.
Considering that the final European overall health report in 2012, substantial improvements have also been seen in prices of death from external causes, such as road visitors accidents and suicides, it identified.
Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO’s European regional director, applauded the improvements in wellness and the steady gains in life expectancy but added a warning.
“There is a incredibly true threat that these gains will be lost if smoking and alcohol consumption continue at the current rate,” she stated. “This is especially relevant to young individuals, who may perhaps not reside as extended as their grandparents.”
The report also looked at vaccination prices and identified commonly good levels of coverage.
Average measles immunization coverage rose from 93.4 % in 2010, to 93.7 % in 2011 and 94.6 percent in 2012 and is steadily increasing.
Nevertheless, gaps in immunity “nevertheless account for ongoing endemic transmission and have led to a quantity of outbreaks of measles and rubella in recent years”, the report said.
In 2015, four deaths from measles have been reported in the region, and 1 youngster has died of diphtheria — the initial case in three decades.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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