Smoking-related diseases eating up Malaysia health budget: report

TodayOnlineMalaysia is being hit hard by the financial burden of smoking-related diseases, with healthcare costs linked to the habit absorbing nearly half the health ministry's budget, a report said.
A study on the healthcare implications of smoking showed that related heart and lung cost 3.1 billion ringgit (821.45 million dollars) in 2004, some 44.3 percent of the health ministry's budget, said the Edge financial newspaper.
The recent study by three Malaysian universities and two tobacco-control bodies said the sum was equivalent to 17.2 percent of total national healthcare spending, and that costs were on the rise.
The research only took into account three major heart and lung smoking-related diseases, so the total costs could be much higher, said the study's authors.
"The research findings are actually very conservative because it only looks at three diseases. There are more than 150 diseases associated with smoking that are caused by the more than 4,000 chemicals in tobacco," health economics expert Syed Mohamed Al Junid was quoted as saying.
The study, to be published next year by the UN's World Health Organisation, looked at healthcare costs for 200 smokers in government hospitals between December 2003 and May this year.
Experts said that the cost of treating patients in private hospitals and other factors such as loss of productivity from illness and premature deaths had not been included in the study.
The number of Malaysians taking up cigarette smoking is on the rise despite high-profile government campaigns to curb the habit.
A National Health Survey last year showed 23.2 percent of adult Malaysians smoked, while separate surveys have shown nearly 25 percent of young people smoke. — AFP