Sixteen per cent of students in Karachi's girls schools smoke, a habit that annually causes some 100,000 deaths in Pakistan, says a leading health official.

"According to recent research, smoking in girls schools of Karachi has risen to 16 per cent," The News Wednesday quoted Nadeem Rizvi, head of the chest diseases department at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical College and president of the Pakistan Chest Society, as saying.