Help at hand for mental disorder

Schizophrenia remains a pressing public health issue, although some progress to combat the disease has been made, an expert commented at the launch of a long-acting injection to palliate the disorder.

Schizophrenia is thought to affect about 10 million people in China, says professor Jiang Kaida, at the Shanghai Mental Health Center, and executive director of Shanghai Mental Disorders Clinical Center.

Jiang says schizophrenia ranks third among all mental disorders in terms of disease burden (impact of a health problem measured by financial cost, mortality, morbidity, among other indicators), following depression and mental problems caused by alcohol addiction.