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AAP
AAP
Health
Samantha Lock

Funding for depression treatment breaks 30-year drought

The federal government is set to fund a new type of medicine for major depression. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)

A mind-altering medication chemically akin to ketamine will be made cheaper to improve the lives of Australians suffering from treatment-resistant depression - the first new government-backed initiative to treat the chronic mental illness in decades.

The drug - which comes in the form of a nasal spray - is a chemical cousin of ketamine, used for decades as a powerful anaesthetic before it was adopted as a party drug in underground rave culture.

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