Mental illness figures

There were 3.538 million people with serious mental illness registered in 226 cities and prefectures in 30 provincial regions across the country by March, the National Health and Family Planning Commission stated on Thursday.

Deng Haihua, spokesman of the commission, said the data suggests that the rate of serious mental illness patients among the Chinese population has reached 2.62 per every 1,000 citizens.

Deng said that the former Ministry of Health began to offer medical services to impoverished people with serious mental illness in 2005. From 2009, that service became one of the country's basic public health service programs.