Michael R. Bloomberg and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have announced a new $375-million joint commitment to fight tobacco around the world, especially in developing countries.
The new commitment comes on top of the $125-million that was donated by Mr. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, two years ago to fight tobacco use in developing countries. Those funds have already been spent.
Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation will commit $250-million over four years. The Gates foundation will spend $125-million over five years.
“In an age of unprecedented technological achievement, in an era of stunning breakthroughs in health and science, we continue to lose too many mothers and fathers, too many friends and people we care about, to the global tobacco epidemic,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
By the end of this century, tobacco use will kill one billion people, according to the World Health Organization.
Currently the number of people who die from tobacco use is evenly split between wealthy countries and developing countries, but that is expected to change as smoking in developing countries accelerates.
By 2030, 70 percent of the deaths due to smoking are expected to occur in developing countries.
Most of the money will be spent on “Mpower,” a campaign that Mr. Bloomberg and the World Health Organization announced in February.
The campaign coordinates efforts by the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, the World Health Organization, the World Lung Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
The Mpower campaign’s name is an acronym of the six key elements of its approach:
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Monitoring tobacco use and control.
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Protecting people by enforcing “smoke free” laws.
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Offering smokers nicotine replacement and counseling programs.
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Warning on cigarette packs about the hazards of smoking.
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Enforcing bans on tobacco advertising and promotion.
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Raising the price of tobacco through taxes.
Only about 5 percent of the countries in the world have antismoking measures like the ones advocated by the campaign.
The $38-billion Gates foundation spends more of its money on promoting global health than on any other cause, but the foundation has not historically put much money into the fight against smoking.
Mr. Gates, in his first public appearance since he left Microsoft to devote more time to his foundation, said he was happy to see Mr. Bloomberg take the lead on fighting global tobacco use two years ago with his $125-million effort.
Some of the Gates foundation’s money will be used to fight tobacco use in Africa, where smoking rates are increasing but lower than in many other developing countries.
Mr. Bloomberg met with Bill and Melinda Gates in their home last year to figure out a way to work together in the campaign against smoking.
“It will be a tough fight and a long-term fight, but a very important one,” Mr. Gates said.
