Mental health to be given greater priority

Representatives from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda were among participants from 15 African nations who agreed to lobby their governments to contribute at least 10 percent of the health budget for treatment of mental illness, WHO announced. Most participants at a recent conference organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Harare, Zimbabwe, said their governments only allocate 1 percent or less of the national health budget to mental illness. Following four days of deliberations that also served as the regional launch of the World Health Report 2001, participants agreed that mental illness did not get the required governmental attention it deserves, even though it affects more than 450 million people globally, WHO reported from Harare on Saturday. For its part, WHO's Regional Office for Africa urged governments and mental health professionals to advocate for the plight of mentally impaired people worldwide - especially in Africa, where most of the patients live. The participants from the African countries and others from WHO headquarters in Geneva called for the creation of organisations that could help mental patients in their countries, much like groups who speak on behalf of AIDS and TB patients. At present, only a handful of countries globally have associations concerned with the plight of mentally impaired people. There was widespread agreement that people suffering from depression, epilepsy and any for of mental disorders should be treated within their communities or family environment rather than in psychiatric institutions. Participants resolved to mobilise resources and technical aid in their countries for the benefit of mental patients, and agreed to train a multidisciplinary team for intervention in emergency situations. They also called for the integration of mental illness into national primary health care systems, the provision of support for operational research on community-based psychosocial rehabilitation, increased interregional cooperation and the development of national guidelines on community-based psychosocial rehabilitation in disaster management. WHO noted that in most countries worldwide, mental illnesses are on the increase because of civil strife, armed conflict, poverty, economic and social difficulties. Most of the victims are women, children (and child soldiers in particular), the elderly, and displaced people. For the complete World Health Report, go to http://www.who.int/whr/