Suicide is our biggest enemy

2004-09-08 14:04

Geneva - Almost one million people kill themselves each year and the number, which exceeds the death toll from murder and war, is expected to hit 1.5 million by 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday.

But suicide is largely preventable, through better surveillance of favourite methods - namely pesticides, guns and painkillers - and a greater focus on support groups, the United Nations' health agency said.

In a bid to raise awareness on the issue, WHO and the International Association for Suicide Prevention will hold their second annual World Suicide Prevention Day on Friday.

"Suicide is a tragic global public health problem," said Catherine Le Gales-Camus, WHO assistant-director general for non-communicable diseases and mental health.

Urgent need for co-operation

"Worldwide, more people die from suicide than from all homicides and wars combined. There is an urgent need for co-ordinated and intensified global action to prevent this needless toll," she said in a statement.

More men than women take their own lives, but a greater number of women than men attempt suicide, WHO said, noting that an estimated 10-to-20 million people try but fail to kill themselves annually.

Among the countries that report such deaths, the highest suicide rates are found in Eastern Europe and the lowest in Latin America, Muslim nations and a smattering of the Asian states, according to the Geneva-based health body.

"Rates tend to increase with age, but there has recently been an alarming increase in suicidal behaviours amongst young people aged 15 to 25 years," WHO said.

The main triggers 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," the agency said.

WHO, which held a special seminar in Geneva on Wednesday 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.

Spotting suicidal tendencies

Attention is now focused on tightening access to pesticides - a favoured 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 helplines 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 also urged the media to take care when reporting a suicide to avoid imitation deaths by others.

- AFP