Brazil's government spends at least 330 million reais (194 million U.S. dollars) annually on treating tobacco-related illness, the state-run Oswaldo Cruz Foundation said in a report Sunday.
Foundation economist Marcia Pinto based the estimates on spending by the Unified Health System on patients being treated for 32 smoking-related conditions.
The figure, representing nearly 8 percent of total spending by the health system, has been extrapolated from a sample of 310 patients who were treated in 2000 at the National Cancer Institute or the National Cardiology Institute, she said.
According to the foundation, the real spending may be much higher, as surgery and other specialized treatment were not counted and many diseases the World Health Organization defined as linked to smoking were not included in the estimates.
All the patients covered by the national health system had smoked between 25 and 35 cigarettes daily for at least three decades. They were suffering lung, larynx and esophagus cancers or chronic blood vessel blockages or angina.
Lung cancer alone costs the government an average 29,000 reais (17,000 U.S. dollars) and larynx cancer 37,500 reais (22,000 U.S. dollars) every year, Pinto said.
"The tobacco industry must pay for the costs assumed by the state, and anti-smoking campaigns must be intensified," she added.
Source:Xinhua
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