U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

AFRICA: WHO calls for increased spending on mental health

JOHANNESBURG, 31 October (IRIN) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) has
urged governments and professionals to highlight the plight of mentally
impaired people living in Africa, where their condition is often
misunderstood or left untreated. Their comments followed a conference on
mental health in Africa last week.

Participants attending the four-day meeting in Harare, where the World
Health Report 2001 was launched, said mental illness did not get the
required governmental attention and assistance that it deserved, yet it
affected more than 450 million people globally. In many African countries
and societies it was still taboo to talk about mental illness because of
the risks of stigmatisation, participants heard.

Delegates from 15 African countries and others from WHO Headquarters in
Geneva, called for the creation of organisations that could assist mental
patients in their respective countries - similar to groups who speak on
behalf of people living with HIV/AIDS. At the moment, only a handful of
countries globally have associations concerned with the plight of mentally
impaired people.

"It's not just a resource issue, it's also about combating ignorance and
working through cultural beliefs," Custodia Mandlhate, WHO regional
adviser for mental health told IRIN on Wednesday. The participants from
Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia,
Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and other African countries
would also lobby their governments to contribute at least 10 percent of
the health budget for mental illness, Mandlhate added.

Most of the participants said their governments only allocated one percent
or less of the national health budget to mental illness. There were calls
for people suffering from depression, epilepsy and any form of mental
disorders to be treated within their communities or family environments
rather than in psychiatric institutions.

Participants agreed to mobilise resources in their respective countries
for the benefit of mental patients. The participants also agreed to train
a multi-disciplinary team for intervention in emergency situations. "There
were also calls for the integration of mental illness in the national
health package," Mandlhate said.

[ENDS]

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[This item is delivered in the "africa-english" service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001