A global mental health fund for serious mental illness in low-income and middle-income countries.

Serious Mental Illnesses (SMI) are psychiatric disorders(excluding developmental and substance use disorders) that result inconsiderable functional impairment. These conditions receive little or nofunding in most Low and Middle Income (LAMI) countries. The huge gap inresources for SMI can only be met by a global fund to provide thetreatment of SMI in LAMI countries. The Global Fund to fight AIDSestablished more than two decades ago, not only provided enormous fundingbut most importantly, generated the hope that the condition could betreated. We argue that SMI stand today where HIV-AIDS was a couple ofdecades ago. The cost effective interventions for these disorders areavailable. For example, it is estimated that that an extra 11 Naira or I$0.27 per capita would need to be invested each year to increase thepresent treatment coverage for schizophrenia of 20% to a level of 70% inNigeria. The treatment package should include free access to essentialmedicines to treat psychotic disorders and a component of appropriateevidence based psychosocial intervention, which have been evaluated innumber of studies in these countries. It is ethical and public healthimperative that a Global Fund to provide the basic treatment for thosesuffering from SMI is established and the seed money for the proposedfund should be provided by rapidly developing LAMI countries such asIndia and South Africa