HEALTH: Global Campaign Targets Mental Illness

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jan 10 2001 (IPS) - No country, no person, is immune to mental health disorders, states the World Health Organisation (WHO) as it launches its international campaign for 2001 to raise awareness about mental health problems, which affect an estimated 400 million people worldwide.

“Rare is the family that will be free from an encounter with a mental disorder, or not need assistance and care over a difficult period,” said Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO director-general.

Mental health problems or brain disorders, which are widespread and universal, represent an important portion of all disease suffered by humanity.

“Neuropsychiatric disorders represent 11.5 percent of the global burden of disease,” said Brundtland.

Five of the 10 leading causes of disability are mental disorders: unipolar major depression, alcohol dependence, bipolar depression, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, according to the United Nations health agency’s 1990 estimates.

Despite the great challenges, Brundtland stressed that researchers and clinicians have made much progress in reducing human suffering from mental illness and in handling the accompanying disabilities.

But the WHO “does not have sufficient data to begin addressing the problem. In other words, we do not know how many people are not getting the help they need,” said director-general.

Due to this lack of information and despite the available help that can be obtained at an accessible cost, “we perpetuate a vicious cycle of ignorance, suffering, destitution and even death,” she pointed out.

The UN health agency is basing its campaign on the principle that “there is no justification in ethics, science or society to exclude persons with a mental illness or a brain disorder from our communities.”

Given this situation, mental health services must not be excluded from general medical attention systems. The equality of mental and physical health is vital, declared the WHO as it launched its global campaign Tuesday in Geneva.

Benedetto Saraceno, head of the WHO Mental Health Department, stated that, for many people around the globe, myths and stereotypes continue to surround mental illness.

The agency states that people who suffer such disorders should not be feared and that mental health problems can affect anyone, but that the early warning symptoms must not be ignored.

Mental and brain disorders affect adults, elderly, children and adolescents, whether rich or poor, says the WHO.

Approximately 20 percent of the world’s children under 15 suffer mild to severe disorders, and many remain untreated because services are simply unavailable.

“The majority of treatments have been traditionally geared to adult patients, ignoring the need for early intervention in childhood,” according to the WHO.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, some 17 million children ages five to seven suffer mental or brain disorders that are severe enough to require treatment.

A WHO study shows that depression affects 10 percent of school children in Alexandria, Egypt, and that anxiety afflicts 17 percent of secondary school students in their final year of studies.

Another landmark study by the agency, involving 27 developing and developed countries, indicates that no population is free of schizophrenia.

“Alcohol abuse is another common disorder that knows no boundaries. For example, in Russia, 35,000 people die every year for fatal alcohol poisoning,” according to the WHO.

The brain disorder epilepsy is universal and more frequent in developing countries, though depression seems to be more universal, as a recent survey of a village in Pakistan concluded that 44 percent of the adults were affected by depressive disorders.

WHO experts refute the idea that mental or brain disorders are brought on by weakness in character. “They are caused by biological, psychological and social factors,” said Derek Yach, the agency’s executive director of Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health.

“We have solutions to treat many mental or brain disorders and to permit persons with a disorder to be functioning members of the community. Yet, society still raises barriers to both the care and the reintegration of people with mental disorders,” says the WHO.

For World Health Day 2001, to be celebrated April 7, the UN agency is planning events to raise awareness throughout the international community about mental health.