Depression patients exceeding 26 million in China

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, December 20, 2003

Depression patients exceeding 26 million in China

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China now has over 26 million depression patients, for which discrimination and neglect are the two major obstacles to curing them, thus incurring an annual loss of over 64 billion yuan, according to a reserved estimation made at the Seminar on Attention to the Socio-Economic Burden of Depression held recently.

While enjoying new life in a new century, people are suffering from the mental miseries brought about by increasing competitions and various kinds of pressures entailed therefrom. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 3 percent of the adults in the world are suffering from depression and in some countries the proportion may be higher. However, in China, the lowest estimate made by departments concerned about the ratio is 2 percent numbering 26 million depression patients.

SEBoD Initiative (Reducing the Socio-Economic Burden of Depression), a non-profit organization composed of authoritative experts in mental health dedicated to studies on depression-related problems, is very worried about the situation of depression in Asia, particularly in China. They advocated that Asian countries adopt open measures and should take initiative in combating depression. It also hopes that Asian countries promote their people's knowledge of depression, the diagnosis and treatment through some important measures for health so as to help revert the present situation of depression in Asia. Measures to be taken should include launching public campaigns of recognition, revising the present treatment and medical insurance terms and adjusting necessary health resources to improve the services for depression patients.

SEBoD pointed out that due to the present cultural, social, economic and legal obstacles, most depression patients in Asia have got no proper treatment, and discrimination and neglect are the two major obstacles in front of them. Particularly, in China, some people feel it a shame to be a depression patient, and more are hostile to them. Therefore, only 5 percent of the depression patients in China have received relevant treatment. Even though the patients take the initiative to seek for treatment, defects in the medical system in some countries make it difficult for the patients to be provided with adequate support and treatment. The toughest problem is the very low rate in identification of such patients in medical institutions.

Depression can turn into a disastrous disease if not discovered or effective treatment is not available in time and will seriously affect the proper operation of a country's finance. The "aggregate disease burden" caused by loss of production capability, low working efficiency, the decrease of life expectancy and other relevant medical expense incurs a yearly economic loss of over 100 billion US dollars in Asia. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicted that the burden caused by depression will jump to the second place in the world by 2020. In view of this proportion, China suffers an annual economic loss of 64 billion US dollars caused by depression.

"We must take into account the situation and reverse it," SEBoD pointed out, a number of people believing that "mental illness can only be cured by mental way" wrongly treat depression as worries thus refuse to receive medical treatment. Effective measures to reduce the social and economic burden brought about by depression are to enhance people's knowledge, to conduct diagnosis early and to choose medicines for treatment. If the patient can be cured at the first clinical treatment, recurrence can be greatly reduced along with the economic burden diminished to a little bit.

As learned the medical circle has been making unremitting efforts in combating the killer of depression and has entered the third phase now. Venlafaxine HCl put into market by the US Wyeth Company in 1994 marks a new era of the medicine for depression. Venlafaxine HCl, with its dual function, has a more comprehensive healing effect for depression and meanwhile covers the symptom spectra of anxiety. In 1997, Wyeth Company developed Venlafaxine HCl-- Efexor XR, realizing taking the medicine once every day. It takes effect more quickly and has a higher clinical healing rate, thus having in a few years' time jumped to the third place among the anti-depression products in the world in terms of the number of prescription.

Depression has also aroused the attention of the health departments of China which, starting from the identification rate of depression, better the medical treatment and recovery of depression patients through improving the mental health services and security measures. In 2002, The Disease Control Department of China's Ministry of Health formulated "Plan for China's Mental Health Work (2002-2010)". It required clearly that the identification rate at general hospitals at local level or above should reach 40 percent and that for general hospitals at county level 30 percent by 2005 and 60 percent and 50 percent by 2010 respectively.

By PD Online, translated by staff member Gao Lanrong

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