About 17.7 percent of the total population in Egypt 15 years old and above – 18 million people – are smokers according to population estimates for 2020, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) announced Sunday in a report.

The percentage of smokers among males is 35.6 percent, compared to 0.3 percent among females, indicating that the issue is primarily a male one.

The average annual expenditure on smoking for an Egyptian family of one or more smokers is about LE6,293.5.

The agency said in the report, issued on World No-Tobacco Day, that the percentage of families with at least one smoker in Egypt is around 41.3 percent: which means that there are about 24 million individuals who are not smokers but are still exposed to secondhand smoke by family members.

The highest percentage of smokers is in the age group between 45 and 54 years old, the report said,  equal to 23.2 percent, followed by the age group between 35 and 44 years old at 22.5 percent, and then the age group between 25 and 34 years old, 20.8 percent.

The highest percentage of smokers among the different educated categories was for those with a literacy certificate at 30.1 percent, followed by those who read and write at 27.5 percent.

The lowest percentage of smokers at all was found among those with a university degree or a higher degree at 12.7 percent.