The World Health Organisation (WHO), which is spearheading a global campaign against tobacco consumption, said it would no longer hire smokers.
"Smokers and other tobacco users will not be recruited by WHO as and from Dec. 1, 2005," the U.N. health agency said in a letter circulated to staff.
The agency, which employs some 2,400 people at its Geneva headquarters, said the new policy would not affect those already working for it.
But new recruits would be asked whether they were smokers, and if they were, whether they would be prepared to give up a habit which WHO says kills nearly 5 million people around the world each year.
"WHO is at the forefront of the global campaign to curb the tobacco epidemic ... the organisation has a responsibility to ensure that this is reflected in all its work," said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.
There was no immediate reaction from the WHO staff association to the anti-smoking move.
On Wednesday, several hundred WHO staff halted work for an hour in an unprecedented protest against job cuts.
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