- BEIJING (Reuters) -- Mental
illness has become a major public health problem in China as the country
modernizes and family traditions fade, Xinhua news agency said Tuesday.
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- About 16 million Chinese suffered some sort of mental
disease, a national incidence of 1.34 percent, the agency quoted the Ministry
of Health as saying.
-
- The ministry had confirmed four groups of people -- youth,
women, the aged, and disaster victims -- as the focus of its work with
schizophrenia, depression, and Alzheimer's disease, the three major mental
diseases in China, Xinhua said.
-
- "China is undergoing great changes with increasing
social conflicts and pressure," Qi Xiaoqiu, director of the ministry's
disease control department, was quoted as saying.
-
- "The transformation of family and population structure
has given rise to the incidence of mental diseases."
-
- Mental illness accounted for 20 percent of diseases in
China and would rise to a quarter by 2020, Xinhua quoted the World Health
Organization as saying.
-
- "Mental health has become a major public health
problem in China, not only affecting the life and work of the patients
and their families, but also bringing heavy economic burden to society,"
the agency quoted Zhu Qingsheng, China's vice health minister, as saying.
-
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