Sep 05 2014 : Mirror (Pune)
One person commits suicide every 40 seconds: UN study
GENEVA
AFP
|
One person commits suicide every 40 seconds, an avoidable tragedy that fails to grab attention because of taboos and stigma, a UN report said on Thursday.The World Health Organisation also warned that media reporting of suicide details raises the risk of copycat behaviour.
“Every suicide is a tragedy. It is estimated that over 800,000 people die by suicide and that there are many suicide attempts for each death,“ said WHO chief Margaret Chan in the landmark report capping a decade of research.
WHO, which called suicide a major public health problem that must be confronted and stemmed, studied 172 countries to produce the report. South East Asia -which in WHO-speak includes countries such as North Korea, India, Indonesia and Nepal -made up over a third of the annual. Suicides in high-income countries, meanwhile, accounted for around a quarter of the global figure.
The most suicide-prone countries were Guyana (44.2 per 100,000), followed by North and South Korea (38.5 and 28.9 respectively). Next came Sri Lanka (28.8), Lithuania (28.2), Suriname (27.8), Mozambique (27.4), Nepal and Tanzania (24.9 each), Burundi (23.1), India (21.1) and South Sudan (19.8).
In 2012, India accounted for the highest estimated number of suicides in the world, said the study.
“Every suicide is a tragedy. It is estimated that over 800,000 people die by suicide and that there are many suicide attempts for each death,“ said WHO chief Margaret Chan in the landmark report capping a decade of research.
WHO, which called suicide a major public health problem that must be confronted and stemmed, studied 172 countries to produce the report. South East Asia -which in WHO-speak includes countries such as North Korea, India, Indonesia and Nepal -made up over a third of the annual. Suicides in high-income countries, meanwhile, accounted for around a quarter of the global figure.
The most suicide-prone countries were Guyana (44.2 per 100,000), followed by North and South Korea (38.5 and 28.9 respectively). Next came Sri Lanka (28.8), Lithuania (28.2), Suriname (27.8), Mozambique (27.4), Nepal and Tanzania (24.9 each), Burundi (23.1), India (21.1) and South Sudan (19.8).
In 2012, India accounted for the highest estimated number of suicides in the world, said the study.
