World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti has said the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to an estimated 25 per cent global rise in depression and anxiety.
Moeti revealed this in a statement on Monday in commemoration of World Mental Health Day, held under the theme ‘Make Mental Health and Wellbeing for All a Global Priority’.
She stated that more than 116 million people in Africa were already estimated to be living with mental health conditions prior to the pandemic, and that suicide rates, as well as the exponential rates of alcohol use and abuse among adolescents as young as 13 years old, remain particularly concerning.
“We urgently need to strengthen regulatory systems to close the gaps that allow such young people easy access to alcohol, contributing to heavy episodic drinking rates of up to 80 per cent among 15- to 19-year-olds. The situation jeopardises their education while also laying the groundwork for a lifetime of alcohol abuse and the associated risks of non-communicable and other related diseases,” she said.
Moeti said insufficient funding for mental health remains the most significant impediment to efforts to expand Africa’s mental health workforce, with fewer than two mental health workers for every 100 000 people, the majority of whom are psychiatric nurses and mental health nursing assistants.
She went on to say that because these scarce resources are concentrated in large psychiatric institutions in urban areas, people in community and primary care are critically underserved. For example, while two-thirds of African countries report having guidelines in place to integrate mental health into primary care, only 11 per cent provide pharmacological and/or psychological interventions at this level.
“However, it is encouraging that up to 82 per cent of our Member States receive training on how to manage mental health conditions at primary care level, with up to 74 per cent reporting that specialists are involved in providing appropriate training and supervision to primary health care professionals. African governments have also made some progress in increasing mental health spending to 46 US cents per person. However, this is still far below the recommended US.dollars 2 per person, and mental health is not covered by national health insurance schemes,” she said.
She urged Africans to commit to working together to deepen the value they place on mental health, reshape the environments that harm mental health, and strengthen care systems so that mental health care is available to all Africans.