WHO: Brazil has highest number of people suffering from depression in Latin America

The World Health Organization (WHO) in its latest report has stated that Brazil leads Latin America with the highest number of people suffering from depression (regarding absolute and relative terms). Depression is a mental illness characterized by deep sadness, despondency, low self-esteem, loss of interest in everything, as well as a decrease in psychic functions. Over 300 million people across the globe are currently suffering from it, with a higher incidence in women (5.1%) than in men (3.6%).

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Brazil also ranks alongside Ukraine, Australia and the US, as one of the nations with the highest population depression rate (5.9% out of total, or about 11.5 million people) globally. Some data, taken from the Center for Valuing Life (CVV), a Brazilian non-profit organization that provides people having suicidal tendencies with telephone assistance, expose that one case occurs every 43 minutes. The WHO warned that around 800 thousand people annually die due to theses tendencies, considered as the second cause of death in the Brazilian population between 15-29 years. People suffering from depression are lacking medical care and in many other countries less than 10% of depressed patients access medical care.

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