As World Oral Health day is commemorated on 20th March of every year, Registrar, Maxillofacial Surgery Department, Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe Dr Mohammed Bose, has decried lack of priority to oral hygiene, saying its has negative impact to health.
Bose in an interview with PERISCOPE NIGERIA on Wednesday, called for increase in awareness around oral health adding that it would reduce the burden of oral diseases which affect individuals as well as health systems and economy.
According to him, Global Oral Health status report by World Health Organisation published in November, 2022, reported that almost half of the population of the world, 3.5 billion individuals suffer from oral diseases.
He said, “Three out of four of every affected individual are from low to middle income countries. Global cases of oral disease have increased by 1 billion over the last 30 years, a clear indication that many people do not have access prevention and treatment of oral diseases.
“Some of the common oral diseases include dental caries (tooth decay), gums bleeding and swelling, oral tumours, facial injuries and their devastating to fatal complications.”
While lamenting how oral diseases affect people the Registrar claimed that races, gender and age groups are not absolved, “Oral health has not been given the right attention in this country because of some factors, among which are; Lack of awareness about it to the populace as well as the policy makers. Few trained dental surgeons and other oral health workers, with about 70 per cent of the dental surgeons in Nigeria practicing and residing in Lagos and south west. High cost of accessing the few oral health services available.
Dearth of government and NGOs interventions in oral health,” he added.
He called for all hands to be on deck to address these problems, urging government and Non-Governmental Organisations to equally give priority to oral health in order to achieve the targeted goals of the universal health coverage, “Through sponsoring awareness campaigns, research in oral health related fields.Governments should also ensure the incorporation of oral health in to the primary health care models leveraging on the concept of task sharing- task shifting.
“NGOs can come in by expanding the scope of some of their interventions by adopting the public health approach of addressing common risk factors, which most oral diseases share common risk factors with many non-communicable diseases.
“Finally, as it is said, prevention is better than cure, let us maintain good oral hygiene practices of brushing twice daily (morning after breakfast and night before going to bed), visit dental clinic twice a year (every six months) for routine check-up and reduce intake of refined sugars, alcohol and tobacco consumption. Remember, your mouth is the gateway to your body, a healthy mouth is a healthy body,” he added.
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