About 13 to 20 percent of people in mainland China are likely to experience depression once in their lifetime, with three to five out of every 100 people suffering from depression, and there are currently at least 2,600 depressed people in the country. There are currently about 340 million depressed people worldwide, of whom about 10 million attempt suicide each year, with a lifetime prevalence of about 6 percent, according to Jiang Kaida, director of the psychiatric branch of the Chinese Medical Association and professor at the Shanghai Mental Health Center, who disclosed the figure today. Depression is ranked fourth among the top 10 global disease burdens listed by the World Health Organization, and is expected to rise to second by 2020. Professor Jiang stressed at the “National Depression and Sleep Disorders Health Promotion Project and Launch of the Merck Sharp & Dohme Care Center 2011 Project” that depression not only causes a lot of discomfort to the patients themselves, but also places a heavy burden on their families and society. He provided the results of a clinical survey on depression in some cities in China, which was completed at the end of February this year, showing that the consultation and cure rates of the 5848 patients surveyed were generally low, the relapse rate was high, and the quality of life was significantly reduced; the quality of life of depressed patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease was even more seriously reduced. For this reason, the Psychiatric Branch of the Chinese Medical Association has proposed a new goal for the scientific treatment of depression: to actively improve patients’ symptoms such as depressed mood and diminished interest, to focus on restoring social function and improving the quality of survival, to improve patients’ treatment compliance, and to minimize the risk of suicide. Professor Jiang reminded the public that depressed patients not only have psychological and behavioral symptoms, but also somatic symptoms such as pain or sexual dysfunction, and the social adaptability of mild and moderate depressed patients will gradually diminish, and severe cases will even be highly disabling and incapacitating; the disease is highly prone to relapse and requires long-term treatment. Therefore, in addition to providing a medical treatment environment for patients, family members also need to pay more care. He revealed that the China Medical Association and Merck Sharp & Dohme had established 18 depression care centers across the country last year, and will build 13 new ones this year through the “Health China” project to expand its coverage to small and medium-sized cities.