Geneva, Sept. 8 (Reuters): A suicide takes place somewhere around the world every 40 seconds, or nearly one million a year, and the rate looks set to surge over the next two decades. international health experts said today.

Although men in their Sixties ? retirement age ? are by far most likely to die at their own hand, the numbers among younger men between 15 and 29 are rising, largely because of availability of guns, the experts said.

?Suicide is a major public health problem and accounts for 1.5 per cent of the total cost of disease to world society,? said Jose Bertolote, mental health specialist at the WHO.

?But it is largely preventable if the public is made more aware of the problem and governments show the political will to tackle it,? said Lars Mehlum, President of the Paris-based International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP).

Mehlum, professor of psychology at Oslo University in Norway, said studies in many countries showed that restrictions on the accessability of firearms, especially to young people, brought reductions in the number of successful suicides.

?Guns are the most lethal instrument of suicide. Few people survive attempts to shoot themselves,? he added. But there was resistance in some countries, especially the US, to reduce the number in circulation.

The two were speaking in advance of the IASP'S World Suicide Prevention Day, to be marked globally on Friday with campaigning to raise awareness of the problem and how it can be tackled.