Cambodia loses 38 million U.S. dollars and over 70,000 lives each year due to cigarette smoking, according to a recent survey jointly conducted by Ministry of Health and World Health Organization.

From 1996 to 2006, 82 percent of rural men, 62 percent of urban dwellers, and 82 percent of youth nationwide were cigarette smokers, said the survey.

Meanwhile, 54 percent of men and seven percent of women in Cambodia were cigarette smokers, it added.

"The danger of cigarette smoking is not as cruel as that of rampant disease like cholera, but it goes into our body slowly, destroys our health and finally leads to death," Lim Thai Pheang, president of the Institute of Public Health of Cambodia, was quoted by local media as saying.

Pregnant women who smoke may have delivery failures and their babies can face various problems of health, said Pheang, whose institute was one of the major conductors of the survey.

Cigarette smoking can cause lung cancer and heart attack, while second-hand smokers may be harmed too, he added.

Source: Xinhua