A recent [b]World Health Organisation[/b] report shows that more than 3m people died from using alcohol in 2012, for reasons ranging from cancer to violence and it has called on governments to do more to limit the damage. [s]Polity[/s] reports that according to Oleg Chestnov, a WHO expert on chronic disease and mental health there was ‘no room for complacency’ – he warned that drinking too much kills more men then women and raises people's risk of developing more than 200 diseases. ‘We found that worldwide about 16% of drinkers engage in heavy episodic drinking – often referred to as “binge-drinking” – which is the most harmful to health,’ said Shekhar Saxena, director for mental health and substance abuse at the WHO.
SA’s [b]Social Development Department[/b] will use the [b]WHO[/b] data and information to step up interventions against South Africans’ ‘risky’ alcohol abuse. The WHO report found that individual South Africans (15 years and older) consumed an average of 8.2ℓ of pure alcohol per annum, which was well above the African continental average of 6ℓ. It found that an average of 2.9ℓ of pure alcohol consumed in SA went unrecorded, potentially bringing the country’s average consumption to about 11ℓ per capita per annum.
[link url=http://www.polity.org.za/article/who-wants-action-as-alcohol-kills-33m-people-in-2012-2014-05-12]Full Polity report[/link]
[link url=http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/112736/1/9789240692763_eng.pdf]WHO report[/link]
[link url=http://www.enca.com/govt-tackling-south-africans-risky-alcohol-attitude-head]Full eNCA report[/link]