DUBLIN, IRELAND
23 - 25 JUNE 2025
At the closing of the 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH), Dr Harry Lando, Chair of the WCTOH Organizing Committee, announced the official conference declaration:
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We, the participants of the WCTOH, meeting on the African continent for the first time, and delighted that for the first time the WCTOH has a woman as President emphasize that:
The tobacco epidemic represents one of the biggest public health threats that the world has ever faced. Tobacco use kills more than 7 million people each year, and the vast majority of these deaths take place in low- and middle-income countries.
The global economic cost of smoking amounts to nearly 2 trillion dollars and 2 percent of the worlds GDP in 2016.
Tobacco use also undermines sustainable development, imposing a huge burden on the global economy, exacerbating poverty, contributing to food insecurity, and harming the environment.
There is an irreconcilable conflict between the manufacture and marketing of tobacco products and the right to health.
The tobacco industry is a driver of poverty and linked to child labor, violation of workers’ rights, food insecurity and exploitation of farmers. African governments need to take concrete and urgent action to implement alternative livelihoods that are the rich sources of income free from tobacco.
Ending the scourge of tobacco and achieving the SDGs will require urgent action.
Therefore the 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health affirms the following:
Dr. Fenton Howell is medical graduate of University College Dublin, Ireland, and completed higher specialist training in Public Health Medicine in 1991. He is the former National Tobacco Control Adviser to the Department of Health, is a Clinical Associate Professor in Public Health in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at Trinity College Dublin, and is a board member of the National Cancer Registry Ireland. Dr. Fenton Howell is a Fellow of both the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of Ireland and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He is a past Dean of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of Ireland, and past President of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, the All Ireland Social Medicine Group and the Irish Medical Organization. He has previously served on the boards of ASH Ireland, the Tobacco Free Research Institute, the European Network on Smoking Prevention, the Institute of Public Health in Ireland and the Medical Bureau of Road Safety, and he chaired the Prevention Working Group for the Ireland–Northern Ireland–United States National Cancer Institute Cancer Consortium.
Dr. Gan Quan, PhD, is Senior Vice President at Vital Strategies, where he leads the Tobacco Control Division, comprising a global team working with governments and civil society partners around the world to reduce tobacco use, the leading preventive cause of deaths worldwide. The Division has supported work in more than 50 low- and middle-income countries with a focus on evidence-based tobacco control policies and implementation, capacity building, and countering interference from the tobacco industry.
Dr. Gan Quan has more than 15 years of international experience in health system building, policy implementation, government partnership, and policy research. Prior to joining Vital Strategies, Dr. Gan Quan spent 14 years with the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), first as Technical Advisor, then Director of China Office, and most recently as Director of Tobacco Control Department. Before joining The Union, Dr. Gan Quan was a research fellow at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at University of California, San Francisco.
