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Mrs de
Boer,
Dr
Reynolds,
Dr Engel,
Mr Lee,
Mr Bowis,
Chairman,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to welcome you all to this launch of
the second phase of the Global Campaign Against Epilepsy. I am
especially pleased that this event today marks the beginning of a year
where mental health and brain disorders will be the global focus of
attention.
As you all know, the theme for this year’s World
Health Day is mental health and brain disorders, and so is the subject
of this year’s World Health Report.
Our advocacy effort will concentrate on reducing
stigma associated with mental ill health and neurological disorders on
raising awareness about the many effective, affordable treatments that
are available but underused, both in developing and industrialized
countries.
I will mark the World Health Day twice this year;
first in Nairobi on the fourth of April where the Kenyan health
authorities for the first time will arrange an "Open Day" at
the country’s main mental hospital. Then, we will celebrate again
here in this room on 6 April in what we hope will be a warm and
forceful celebration of the benefits of inclusion and care.
The World Health Report will give a comprehensive
review of what we know: about the current and future global burden of
mental ill health and neurological disorders; about the effectiveness
of prevention and the availability and restraints to treatment; and
about the policies needed to ensure that stigma and discrimination is
broken down and effective prevention and treatment are put in place
and funded.
I am confident that our efforts this year will take
mental health a large step forward towards equal priority and respect
with physical aspects of health.
This past century has seen spectacular changes in
the way we live and think. Human brilliance and technology have come
together to propose solutions we dared not imagine forty years ago. We
have conquered diseases that once seemed insurmountable. We have saved
millions of people from premature death and disability. And our search
for better solutions to health is, as it should be, ceaseless.
Mental health is a central part of overall health.
When I took office, two-and-a-half years ago, I was convinced
that WHO should devote considerable energies to addressing the
challenges posed by mental disorders. Since then, my resolve has only
been strengthened.
There is also an increasingly strong evidence
confirming the close relationship between health and development. Ill
health taxes the economy of whole nations as well as bringing terrible
burdens on families. By reducing the burden of disease, we also
improve the conditions for reducing poverty.
When we talk about reducing the toll from the
diseases that cause and perpetuate poverty, we often focus on malaria,
HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, early childhood diseases and problems linked
to pregnancy and birth. But we could also include mental and
neurological disorders.
An estimated 400 million people alive today suffer
from mental or neurological disorders or from psychosocial problems
such as those related to alcohol and drug abuse. Around fifty million
of them suffer from epilepsy. Many of them suffer silently. Many of
them suffer alone. Beyond the suffering and beyond the absence of care
lie the frontiers of stigma, shame, exclusion and, more often than we
care to know, death.
Of those who suffer from epilepsy, around 85% live
in developing countries. There are two million new cases occurring in
the world every year.
What neurological disorders have in common with
mental ill health is that these conditions are victims of stigma,
ignorance and fear. As a result, these diseases receive low priority
by authorities and health personnel in many countries.
Stigma and discrimination have several
consequences: they limit the degree to which patients attend
treatment; they limit the degree to which health workers are being
trained adequately to identify, assess and treat disorders; they may
even limit the willingness of mental health care providers to
intervene. They also reduce the abilities of the patients to live
normal lives in their communities and workplaces and in some
circumstances prevent them from earning a living altogether.
Up to 80% of persons with epilepsy could lead
normal lives if properly treated, but the overwhelming majority of
patients does not get any treatment at all. The WHO Regional Office
for the Americas estimates that out of five million people with
epilepsy in the Region, 3.5 million are believed to be untreated. A
recent survey of 30 Latin American countries revealed that none of
them had national policies for epilepsy. In sub-Saharan Africa, there
is one neurologist for four million people.
So we are facing the two challenges of reducing
stigma and of building up capacity to correctly diagnose and treat
epilepsy patients world-wide.
It can be done. Epilepsy is not difficult to
diagnose if health personnel have received minimum level of training.
And it can be effectively treated with safe and inexpensive
medication. The main anti-epileptic drug, phenobarbitone, can be
produced and sold for as little as $5 per person per year.
The difference can be between total disability and
a fully normal life. Research from the United Kingdom shows that
around 70% or the estimated cost of epilepsy are caused by premature
mortality and disability, leading to need for care and lost
productivity.
As health workers, we know that few opportunities
are as gratifying as that of being able to restore someone back from
despair to a normal life. The Global Campaign Against Epilepsy, which
was so aptly named "Out of the Shadows" is based on that
inspiration.
The collaboration between the International Bureau
for Epilepsy, the International League Against Epilepsy and WHO has
shown that when people with different backgrounds and roles come
together with a shared purpose, creativity is released and expertise
is used in innovative and constructive ways.
The original objectives of this campaign were:
- to increase awareness, both among health professionals and the
general public, of epilepsy as a universal and treatable disorder;
- to raise epilepsy to a new plane of acceptability in the public
domain;
- to improve education about epilepsy;
- to identify the needs of people with epilepsy; and
- to encourage governments to address the needs of people with
epilepsy.
The first three years have focused on the first
three objectives: increasing awareness, creating acceptance and
improving education. Much work has gone into the campaign and special
care has been taken to involve a broad spectrum of experts and
professionals. Activities to improve awareness have been held in over
50 countries world-wide. More than 1200 health professionals from more
than 100 countries have participated in consultations to shape the
work in countries and to formulate regional declarations against
epilepsy.
In doing so, the campaign has built the foundations
for achieving the last two objectives. How well we have succeeded in
creating awareness and reducing stigma – at least among decision
makers in countries around the world, will determine to what extent we
will succeed in convincing governments to address the needs of those
living with epilepsy.
We are here to launch the second phase of the
global campaign. And I am pleased to say that judging from the
momentum the campaign has created, the considerable efforts from all
who are involved have been a success.
We can today announce four demonstration projects
against epilepsy in four countries: Argentina, China, Senegal and
Zimbabwe.
These four demonstration projects will assess the
number of people suffering from epilepsy in the project area and train
primary health care workers within the existing primary health service
how best to diagnose and treat epilepsy patients. In China, the
project will cover a population of nearly three million people.
The projects will run for four to five years. The
experiences they will yield will form the basis for developing
national programmes in the four countries and to assist other
countries in designing their own programmes.
We have come a long way since the campaign started
three years ago. We can now enter the second stage reassured that we
are making real improvements to the lives of hundreds of thousands of
people, and we are laying the foundations for lasting improvements for
millions more.
With that inspiration in mind, let us all to do our
best to make this second phase of the global campaign a success, and
that we can bring epilepsy out of the shadows.
Thank you. |
