Alcohol causes
nearly 4 percent of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or
violence, the World Health Organisation has warned. Rising incomes have
triggered more drinking in heavily populated countries in Africa and
Asia, including India and South Africa, and binge drinking is a problem
in many developed countries, the United Nations agency said. Yet
alcohol control policies are weak and remain a low priority for most
governments despite drinking’s heavy toll on society from road
accidents, violence, disease, child neglect and job absenteeism, it
said. Approximately 2.5 million people die each year from alcohol
related causes, the WHO said in its “Global Status Report on Alcohol
and Health.” “The harmful use of alcohol is especially fatal for
younger age groups and alcohol is the world’s leading risk factor for
death among males aged 15-59,” the report found. In Russia and the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), every fifth death is due to
harmful drinking, the highest rate. Binge drinking, which often leads
to risky behaviour, is now prevalent in Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico,
Russia, South Africa and Ukraine, and rising elsewhere, according to
the WHO.
“Worldwide, about
11 percent of drinkers have weekly heavy episodic drinking occasions,
with men outnumbering women by four to one. Men consistently engage in
hazardous drinking at much higher levels than women in all regions,”
the report said. Health ministers from the WHO’s 193 member states
agreed last May to try to curb binge drinking and other growing forms
of excessive alcohol use through higher taxes on alcoholic drinks and
tighter marketing restrictions.
Alcohol is a causal
factor in 60 types of diseases and injuries, according to WHO’s first
report on alcohol since 2004. Its consumption has been linked to
cirrhosis of the liver, epilepsy, poisonings, road traffic accidents,
violence, and several types of cancer, including cancers of the
colorectum, breast, larynx and liver. “Six or seven years ago we didn’t
have strong evidence of a causal relationship between drinking and
breast cancer. Now we do,” Vladimir Poznyak, head of WHO’s substance
abuse unit who coordinated the report, told Reuters.
Alcohol consumption rates vary greatly, from high levels in
developed countries, to the lowest in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa,
and southern Asia, whose large Muslim populations often abstain from
drinking. Homemade or illegally produced alcohol – falling outside
governmental controls and tax nets – accounts for nearly 30 percent of
total worldwide adult consumption.
