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341 smoking-related deaths last year  

A total of 341 deaths last year were related to smoking - an average of nearly one a day - and 241 of the people who died were men, Charmaine Gauci, director of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, said yesterday.

Addressing a joint press conference on the EU's "Help, For a Life Without Tobacco" campaign, Dr Gauci said it is difficult to gauge the number of deaths directly caused by smoking. . . .

Malta was one of the first countries worldwide to adopt the smoking ban in public places, and this has certainly contributed to lower levels of tobacco smoke in the air.

However, as Ms Buttigieg pointed out, a lot still has to be done in terms of enforcement. She also stressed the importance of anti-smoking campaigns such as "Help", which raise awareness on the harmful effects of carbon monoxide (CO), a toxic gas produced by smoking any form of tobacco.

The "Help" campaign included a study, the "Help-COmets study", which was a survey of 221,650 smokers and non-smokers across the EU.

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