De-stigamatise mental illness - WHO head

The Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Gro Harlem Brundtland, on Wednesday called for efforts “to take the shame out of mental illness”, which affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. “Only when we address the stigma and discrimination together will we be able to make real progress,” she said in an address at Mathare National Mental Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. She pointed out that globally, one person in every four will be affected by a mental disorder at some stage of life. “It is a rare family that will never have an encounter with it,” she added. For details and more stories on health issues in Africa, see IRIN webspecial: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/webspecials/health/index.phtml