Smoking kills over 15,000 people in Algeria every year. Some of 7,000 smokers die of heart attack, a specialist in respiratory diseases said Wednesday.

“Smoking causes deadly diseases including heart attacks,” said Professor Salim Nafti, president of the Algerian Association of Respiratory Diseases and Tuberculosis.

In a seminar in Boumerdes Province (50 km east of Algeria), Professor Nafti mentioned that 2,000 to 3,000 smokers in Algeria die of lung and throat cancer.