The rising medical costs linked to tobacco-related illnesses and deaths, along with the aging of the Chinese population, may cripple the China's social security system in just two decades, an official warned on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

Tobacco-linked deaths have been on the rise over the past decade and are expected to reach a peak between 2025 and 2030, a time when China is set to overtake Japan as the world's most aged society, said Liang Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The combination of the two will put a severe strain the country's social security system, Liang said.

According to research by Hu Angang, a professor at Tsinghua University, health care and other smoking-related costs exceeded the tobacco industry's economic gains by 61.8 billion yuan in 2010.

Tobacco use is one of the leading preventable causes of death in the world. It kills nearly six million people worldwide each year, including over 600,000 who die from exposure to second-hand smoke.

In China, it kills over one million people each year, where nearly 30 percent of adults, or more than 300 million, smoke. Another 740 million people are exposed to second-hand smoke annually.

(China.org.cn July 14, 2012)

據(jù)新華社報(bào)道，一名官員本周四警告稱，由煙草引發(fā)的疾病和死亡帶來(lái)的醫(yī)療費(fèi)用越來(lái)越高，隨著中國(guó)人口老齡化加劇，只需20年我國(guó)的社會(huì)保障體系就有可能被拖垮。

中國(guó)疾病預(yù)防控制中心副主任梁曉峰表示，過(guò)去十年間，煙草引發(fā)的死亡人數(shù)一直在增多，并有望在2025至2030年間達(dá)到一個(gè)高峰，那時(shí)中國(guó)將超越日本成為世界上老齡化最為嚴(yán)重的國(guó)家。

梁曉峰說(shuō)，兩個(gè)因素加在一起將嚴(yán)重影響我國(guó)的社會(huì)保障體系。

據(jù)清華大學(xué)胡鞍鋼教授所做的一份研究顯示，2010年醫(yī)療花費(fèi)和其它吸煙相關(guān)的花費(fèi)超過(guò)煙草業(yè)經(jīng)濟(jì)收入618億元。

吸煙是世界上主要的可預(yù)防死因之一。每年，煙草在全世界奪去近600萬(wàn)人的生命，其中60多萬(wàn)人是死于吸二手煙。

在中國(guó)，近30%的成年人，也就是超過(guò)3億成年人吸煙，每年因此死亡的人數(shù)超過(guò)100萬(wàn)。另外，每年還有7.4億人生活在二手煙的環(huán)境中。