The World Health Organization (WHO) has released the first-ever guidelines to help people who want to quit smoking, including a range of interventions, therapies and digital approaches.

These recommendations are expected to benefit more than 750 million adults worldwide who want to quit smoking, including cigarettes, water pipes, smokeless tobacco, cigars, roll-your-own cigarettes and hot tobacco. .

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that the issuance of guidelines is an important milestone in the global fight against tobacco products. This will provide countries with the resources they need to effectively support people who quit smoking and help reduce the burden of tobacco-related diseases worldwide.

Medicines, counseling and digital supp

In its guidelines, WHO recommends a variety of medications, treatments and behavioral changes to significantly increase smoking cessation rates.

They particularly urge low- and middle-income countries to provide these treatments for free or at low cost so that more people can access them. Medications prescribed by the agency include varenicline, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), bupropion, cytosine, and others.

WHO recommends short counseling sessions of 30 seconds to three minutes with medical workers in health centers for behavior change. Apart from this, methods such as counseling at individual and group level and over the phone are also part of these suggestions.

Text messages, smartphone apps, and Internet programming can also be used to help smokers quit, the agency says.

Limited resources, medical problems

Roediger Kreich, Director of Health Promotion at WHO, says that the struggle of smokers to quit should be appreciated and the difficulties they and their loved ones face in the process should be acknowledged. The Institute's recommendations are designed to best support people and governments facing this difficult struggle.

1.25 billion people in the world smoke, of which 750 million want to quit, but the vast majority do not have access to services to help them. Limited resources and other issues related to the health system are the major reasons for this.