The number of people using smoking cessation services fell by 150,000 in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Promotion Administration (HPA) data showed.
Agency figures showed that 491,127 people sought such services in 2015.
The number rose to more than 750,000 in 2018 before dropping to 480,000 in 2020.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
A similar trend can been seen in the US, where data from the American Psychological Association suggest that the number of people calling the smoking cessation hotline in 2020 was the lowest since 2007.
The administration offers subsidies to people who want to access medicines to help quit smoking, HPA Director-General Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) said on Sunday.
The subsidies have been funded by the health and welfare surcharge on tobacco since 2002, providing up to NT$200 per service for people to quit smoking by taking drugs prescribed by a doctor, he said.
The latest adjustment to the policy waives the cost of the drugs, which were used by an average of 93,000 people every year over the past three years, meaning that people who seek the service can save about NT$1,200 per year, Wu said.
Nicotine could alter the nervous system in the long term, and cause reliance on and desire for tobacco products, Cathay General Hospital Department of Chest Medicine director Wu Chin-tung (吳錦桐) said.
Nicotine gums and skin patches are used as nicotine replacements to help reduce withdrawal effects that might occur when people stop smoking, he said.
About half of the smokers who quit do so without the help of such medicines, he added.
The most important factor in quitting smoking is determination and having a plan, Wu Chin-tung said, adding that the overall success rate of the smoking cessation service was 30 percent.
Administration official Liu Chia-hsiu (劉家秀) quoted the WHO as saying that smoking exacerbates respiratory diseases and raises the possibility of spreading pathogens from the hands to the mouth.
Liu called on smokers to try to quit smoking during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the disease can increase the risk of developing severe symptoms or dying.
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