World Health Organization has expressed concern over suicide rates and the exponential rates of the intake of alcohol and abuse among adolescents.
In a statement to mark the World Mental Health Day 2022, the Regional Director of the World Health Organization for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said there is a dire need to strengthen regulatory systems so as to close the gaps that allow young people easy access to alcohol, which she noted contributes to heavy episodic drinking rates as high as eighty percent among teens from fifteen to nineteen.
Dr. Moeti, however noted, that pre-pandemic, more than one hundred and sixteen million people were already estimated to be living with mental health conditions but inadequate financing for mental health continues to be the biggest limitation.
According to the World Health Organization Regional Director, there are fewer than two mental health workers for every one hundred thousand people, the majority of whom are psychiatric nurses and mental health nursing aids adding that scarce resources are concentrated on psychiatric institutions in urban areas, while people at community and primary care level are left critically underserved.
World Mental Health Day, often marked on tenth October every year, provides an opportunity to draw attention to Africa’s large and growing burden of mental health conditions, especially with children and adolescents worst impacted.
This year’s theme, “Make Mental Health and Wellbeing for All a Global Priority”, serves as a reminder that, after nearly three years, the social isolation, fear of disease and death, and the strained socio-economic circumstances associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to an estimated twenty-five percent global rise in depression and anxiety.
Comments are closed for this post.