Suicide kills one person every 40 seconds

GENEVA: Nearly 800,000 people commit suicide each year -- more than those killed by war and homicide or breast cancer, the World Health Organisation said on Monday, urging action to avert the tragedies.

In a fresh report, the UN health agency said that the global suicide rate had fallen somewhat between 2010 and 2016, but the number of deaths has remained stable because of a growing global population.

"Despite progress, one person still dies every 40 seconds from suicide," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement, insisting that "every death is a tragedy for family, friends and colleagues."

The global suicide rate in 2016 -- the last year for which data was available -- stood at 10.5 per 100,000 people.

But rates varied widely, with suicides in some countries as low as five per 100,000, while Guyana, which topped the scales, registered a rate of over 30 per 100,000. Overall, the global suicide rate fell by nearly 10 percent from 2010 to 2016, with the western Pacific showing declines of nearly 20 percent and Southeast Asia registering a decline of only 4.2 percent.