Most Chinese people are not aware of the harm caused by second-hand smoke and more needs to be done to cut the number of smokers, officials of the All-China Environment Federation said yesterday.

They made the announcement at a symposium in the city organized by the AEF to promote public awareness about the dangers of second-hand smoke.

Prior to the Olympic Games in Beijing next summer, the AEF plans to hold similar symposiums in the other five Chinese cities - including Tianjin and Qingdao - which will hold Olympic events.

"Second-hand smoke is a major problem in China but not many people know that," said Wang Yuming, an official of the AEF's international cooperation department.

According to a survey by AEF, a non-government environmental protection organization, 85 percent of 192 respondents said they were not clear about the severe consequences of second-hand smoking.

In China, smoking in public is common. "When a general manager smokes in office, his secretary is the victim of second-hand smoke," Wang said. Some of the city's senior government officials even smoked while having meetings at work, without regard for other people's health.

Fu Hua, a professor at the School of Public Health at Fudan University, said second-hand smoke could do more harm to people than smoking since the former produces un-filtered harmful emissions which could be inhaled by non-smokers.

He said tobacco smoke contained more than 4,000 chemicals which could cause diseases such as asthma, lung and cardiovascular problems.

Wang said China was doing a far poorer job than many Western countries - such as the United States - to curb smoking in public places.

According to AEF, China has 350 million smokers and another 540 million Chinese are victims of second-hand smoking. The combined number accounts for about 70 percent of the country's entire population.

Zhang Liqiang, managing director of the Shanghai Health Education Institute, said the government didn't raise the price of tobacco because the economy of many Chinese provinces, such as Yunnan, depended on the tobacco industry. If the government put up the price too much, it would affect their economic development.

(Shanghai Daily December 6, 2007)