Smoking to Cause Up to 40 Million TB Deaths by 2050: Study

Smoking-related lung damage could cause an additional 18 million TB cases and 40 million TB deaths by 2050, a new study suggests.

Dr. Sanjay Basu, of the University of California-San Francisco, and colleagues created a mathematical model of TB epidemics based on smoking trends and smoking’s impact on TB risk. About 20 percent of people smoke tobacco worldwide, a percentage expected to grow in many poor countries, the study noted.

Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia could see the biggest increase in smoking-related TB, the study said.

However, “Aggressively lowering the prevalence of tobacco smoking could reduce smoking-attributable deaths from tuberculosis by 27 million by 2050,” the study found, assuming a 1 percent reduction in smoking prevalence per year to eradication.

The study, “Projected Effects of Tobacco Smoking on Worldwide Tuberculosis Control: Mathematical Modeling Analysis,” was published in the British Medical Journal (2011;343:d5506;doi:10.1136/bmj.d5506).

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