Smoking: Its harms and prevalence: FACTBOX

China's tobacco industry is foiling efforts to control smoking and Chinese leaders must give stronger support to measures to control tobacco use, an international panel of experts said in a report on Thursday.

Below are some facts on smoking:

* Tobacco-related illnesses kill up to half of tobacco users, the World Health Organisation says on its Internet site. In the form of smoking, it can cause lung and other types of cancer, heart attack and stroke;

* The annual death toll of more than five million worldwide could rise to more than eight million by 2030 unless urgent action is taken to control the tobacco epidemic;

* More than 80% of the world's one billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries. Total consumption of tobacco products is increasing globally, though it is decreasing in some high-income and upper middle-income countries;

* China has 300 mn smokers who consume a third of the world's cigarettes. Nearly 60% of men in China smoke, puffing an average 15 cigarettes per day. Some 1.2 mn people in China died from smoking-related causes in 2005 and of these, nearly 34% were between the ages of 40 and 69;

* India is another leading user of tobacco and in some population groups in the country, tobacco usage is over 50% in men;

* In the United States, around 20% of adults smoked in 2007 and one of the country's national health objectives in 2010 was to reduce that figure to 12% or below;

* In 2005, 24% of adults aged 16 or over in Britain smoked cigarettes, down from 45% in 1974.

Sources: World Health Organisation, Chinese Centre for Disease Control, US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Britain's Office for National Statistics.