GENEVA (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) -- Young girls in many countries are now as likely as boys to pick up smoking, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned Friday.

While men still make up the overwhelming majority of smokers across the world, in half of the countries surveyed in recent years the younger generation saw "no gender difference" in rates of tobacco use.

Smoking has a prevalence of some 40 per cent among men, according to 2006 health statistics, and nearly 9 per cent among women.

On Monday, the WHO will mark World No Tobacco Day, an annual initiative to raise awareness of the dangers that cigarettes, chewing tobacco, water pipes and other products.

WHO officials say that tobacco companies' marketing, particularly in the developing world, was increasingly targeting women, which was seen as a growth-group in which the industry had "room to expand."

"While the epidemic of tobacco use among men is in slow decline in some countries, use among women in some countries is increasing," the UN's health agency warned.

An estimated 5 million people die each year from tobacco use, statistics show, of which some 1.5 million are women. The numbers are expected to rise.

To better reach women, the WHO was focusing this year on a campaign meant to counter the industry's advertisements. Under the banner "smoking is ugly," female models were being presented with severe health problems caused from harmful tobacco use.

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