World Hepatitis Alliance
World Hepatitis Alliance’s Response to the Zero Draft of the Political Declaration of the UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health
Briefs & Fact Sheets
28 May 2025
The harms of tobacco use are well-established. Tobacco causes 8 million deaths every year from cardiovascular diseases, lung disorders, cancers, diabetes, and hypertension.1 Smoking tobacco is also a known risk factor for severe disease and death from many respiratory infections.2-4 In the COVID-19 pandemic, questions have been asked about clinical outcomes for smokers, and whether they are equally susceptible to infection, and if nicotine has any biological effect on the SAR-CoV-2 virus (the virus that causes COVID-19)