One suicide every 40 seconds: WHO

Every 40 seconds someone in the world takes their own life, a global tally of more than 800,000 suicides a year, according to a landmark United Nations report on the subject.

The research found that suicide killed more people each year than conflicts and natural catastrophes, accounting for more than half of the world's 1.5 million violent deaths annually, World Health Organization staff told reporters at its presentation in Geneva.

The report, the U.N agency's first on the subject, analyzed data on suicides from 172 countries, and took a decade to compile.

Setting a goal to cut national suicide rates by 10 percent by 2020, the organization said suicide was a major but preventable health problem that health authorities had failed to adequately address due to a number of complicated factors. See Landmarks after the cut…

· WHO report estimates one suicide in the world every 40 seconds, or 800,000 a year

· The document estimates a global average of 11.4 people in 100,000 took their own life

· Men are almost twice as likely as women to take their own lives, the report found

· High-income countries had a slightly higher suicide rate than poorer countries