Yaoundé, 2 September 2008 - A decade ago, governments in the WHO African Region adopted a strategy to improve the oral health (ORH) of their people; but, ten years on, significant challenges still hamper its progress.

The five pillars of the 1998 ORH strategy are: development and implementation of national strategies; integration of oral health into national health programmes; service delivery; use of a regional education and training approach for oral health programmes; and the development of an oral health management and information system.

In spite of significant progress made in areas such as elaboration of national oral health programmes, decentralization of oral health services at district level and training of oral health personal, a number of factors continue to hamper the effective implementation of the strategy, says WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, in a report to the ongoing fifty-eighth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa in Yaoundé.

These include: inadequate resources allocated to implement the oral health strategy at country level; insufficient involvement of ORH officers in decision-making regarding the planning and implementation of national health programmes; piecemeal implementation of the ORH component of national health programmes; supply and maintenance challenges, given that dental services are dependent on sophisticated technologies often unavailable locally.

Others are the high cost of treatment of oral diseases; weak research as well as community and partner participation in the improvement oral health; inadequate data; and the fact that the training of dentists is often ill-adapted to local needs.

Given the change in the overall picture of oral diseases in the Region, especially with the emergence of oral manifestations of HIV/AIDS and the increase in the number of Noma cases, Dr Sambo proposes 10 actions that African countries should take to reinforce the implementation of the ORH strategy with a view to helping improve the oral health of people in the Region.

These are:

• Strengthening the political commitment of governments,
• Adopting an integrated approach to improving oral health,
• Developing and implementing oral health promotion programmes,
• Strengthening national coordination of oral health programmes,
• Increasing national budget allocation to oral disease prevention and control activities,
• Investing in appropriate infrastructure and equipment,
• Increasing the availability of skilled and motivated oral health personnel,
• Developing or strengthening surveillance systems,
• Encouraging research to provide evidence on the cost-effectiveness of oral health interventions,
• Strengthening intersectoral and multisectoral partnerships for improving oral health.

For further information:

Technical contact:

Dr. Charlotte Ndiaye

Tel: + 47 241 38354

E-mail: ndiayec [at] zw.afro.who.int

Media contact

Samuel Ajibola

Tel : +47 241 39378

E-mail : ajibolas [at] afro.who.int