Shisha Pipes

A local store in Cairo. Smoking shisha has a long tradition and is also an increasingly trendy thing to do both here and in the capitals of Europe. Shisha is a form of tobacco and I believe worse for your health. Here are some stats . . .taken from a recent article published locally . . .

With 30 percent (or 27 million) of Egypt’s population currently using tobacco products and 50 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people exposed to second-hand smoking, the number of deaths from cancer caused by tobacco and tuberculosis has reached new levels.

According to the WHO in 2009, one third of cancer deaths in Egypt were related to tobacco consumption. In 2015, the number of deaths from lung cancer, heart disease and other non-infectious diseases had reached 170,000 per year, with lung cancer playing a significant role.

The WHO added that over the past 30 years, the number of smokers in Egypt increased over twice as fast as the population. This has resulted in more than 19 billion cigarettes smoked annually in Egypt, making it the largest market in the Arab world and one of the top ten per capita consumers of tobacco.

One of the rising concerns from smoking shisha (water pipe) has been the spread of tuberculosis. According to the WHO in 2009, 17 percent of tuberculosis cases in the eastern Mediterranean were attributable to the smoking of water pipes. In Egypt, this translated to 30 people in every 100,000. Experts have often said that while cafes often provide customers with new mouthpieces, bacteria can still reside in the shisha’s tube, glass and water.

Along with the deadly consequences, tobacco consumption has caused considerable economic loss due to rising health costs and the loss of productivity among civilians during a time when Egypt’s economy is turbulent. In 2005, the health care cost of treating tobacco related diseases was estimated at EGP 3.4 billion ($US 616 million).