GENEVA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- While the world is smoking less, tobacco still hooks one in five adults worldwide, causing millions of preventable deaths every year, and e-cigarettes are fueling a new wave of nicotine addiction, said a report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday.

The number of tobacco users has dropped from 1.38 billion in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024. Since 2010, the number of people using tobacco has fallen by 120 million, a 27 percent drop in relative terms, according to the report.

"Millions of people are quitting, or not starting, tobacco use thanks to tobacco control efforts by countries around the world," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "In response to this strong progress, the tobacco industry is fighting back with new nicotine products, aggressively targeting young people. Governments must act faster and more strongly to implement proven tobacco control policies."

For the first time, the WHO has estimated global e-cigarette use and the numbers are alarming: more than 100 million people worldwide now vape, including at least 86 million adults, mostly in high-income countries, and at least 15 million children aged 13-15. In countries with data, children are on average nine times more likely than adults to vape.

The tobacco industry has been introducing new products and technologies to market tobacco addiction -- not just with cigarettes, but also with e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, heated tobacco products and others, it said, adding that all of these harm people's health, and more worryingly, the health of new generations, youth, and adolescents, said the report.

"E-cigarettes are fueling a new wave of nicotine addiction," said Etienne Krug, WHO Director of Health Determinants, Promotion and Prevention Department. "They are marketed as harm reduction, but in reality, they are hooking kids on nicotine earlier and risk undermining decades of progress."

Findings of the new report, titled "WHO global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco use 2000-2024 and projections 2025-2030," are based on 2034 national surveys, covering 97 percent of the global population. ■