 Suicide Deaths Higher than War, Murder Toll
One million kill themselves every year
GENEVA
Almost one million people kill themselves each year, exceeding the death toll from murder and war, and the number may hit 1.5 million by 2020, the World Health Organization has warned.
But suicide is largely preventable, through better surveillance of favorite methods--namely pesticides, guns, and painkillers--and a greater focus on support groups, the United Nations health agency said.
"Suicide is a tragic global public health problem," said Catherine Le Gales-Camus, WHO assistant director general for noncommunicable diseases and mental health. "Worldwide, more people die from suicide than from all homicides and wars combined. There is an urgent need for coordinated and intensified global action to prevent this needless toll," she said.
More men than women take their own lives, but a greater number of women than men attempt suicide, the WHO said, noting that an estimated 10 to 20 million people try but fail to kill themselves annually.
"Men usually resort to more definitive measures than women," said Lars Mehlum, president of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) and a professor of psychiatry and suicidology at the University of Oslo.
Among the countries that report such deaths, the highest suicide rates are found in Eastern Europe--namely Russia and the Ukraine--and the lowest in Latin America, Muslim nations, and a smattering of the Asian states. WHO said it has little reliable data on suicide in most African countries.
The agency noted that rates tend to increase with age, but there has recently been an alarming increase in suicidal behaviors among young people aged 15 to 25 years. Mehlum said this was because the expectation and hopes of success among today's youth are much higher than before, and when reality bites it is often too much to bear.
In general, the main triggers for suicide are poverty, unemployment, the loss of a loved one, arguments, and legal or work-related problems.
"A family history of suicide, as well as alcohol and drug abuse, and childhood abuse, social isolation, and some mental disorders including depression and schizophrenia, also play a central role in a large number of suicides," according to the global health body.
WHO, which recently held a special seminar in Geneva to discuss suicide prevention, noted that a recent decision by pharmaceutical companies to package painkillers in blister packs rather than easy-to-access bottles had a significant impact on their use as a death tool.
Attention is now focused on tightening access to pesticides--a favored technique in rural China--and firearms, it said.
Better education for doctors to spot suicidal tendencies, such as depression, and how to treat them, as well as the establishment of special help lines for people to call, also helps to reduce the problem.
WHO said it has produced a set of guidelines on suicide prevention in more than a dozen languages for health workers, teachers, prison officers, media professionals, and survivors of suicide. It urged countried to conduct awareness-raising campaigns, workshops, and meetings on suicide prevention.
It also urged the media to take care when reporting a suicide to avoid imitation deaths by others.
Deborah Haynes, AFP
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