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In Bangladesh, mental health activities are generally concentrated on hospital-based psychiatry, which is grossly inadequate. There is an increasing awareness of the need to shift the emphasis to community-based mental health programme.

Substance abuse and drug dependence have shown significant increase in Bangladesh. Capacity building, advocacy and awareness campaigns, innovative community-based management programmes, development of training material, support for research on issues related to substance abuse are needed.

There is no reliable data on the prevalence of mental illness in the country. Based on global estimates, there are 14 million mentally ill people in the country. 0.5% of the population are mentally disabled. There are seventy qualified psychiatrists and 1 hospital bed for 200,000 people in the country.