The Acting Regional Director for Africa of the World Health Organisation, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, said despite advances made in oral healthcare, the African Region lags behind key oral health indicators.
Ihekweazu stated that only 17 per cent of the regional population has access to essential oral healthcare services.
He made this known in his message on Thursday to commemorate the 2025 World Oral Health Day.
World Oral Health Day is observed annually on 20 March as a vital opportunity to raise awareness and prioritize oral health – an essential component of overall well-being that is often overlooked.
According to him, oral diseases such as dental caries, gum disease and tooth loss affected 42 per cent of the WHO African Region’s population in 2021.
“The region also has the highest number of noma cases, a rapidly progressing, non-contagious gangrenous disease of the mouth that primarily affects young children.
“If left untreated, noma has a high fatality rate, and survivors often suffer from life-long impairments, disfigurement, stigma and discrimination,” he noted.
To tackle these challenges, he highlighted that member states endorsed the Regional Oral Health Strategy 2016–2025, integrating oral disease into noncommunicable disease prevention and control programmes.
According to him, the risk factors of oral diseases are tobacco, alcohol, high sugar intake, and socioeconomic and commercial determinants – with other NCDs such as diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases, making an integrated approach more effective.
“At the global level, the Seventy-fourth World Health Assembly in 2021 recognized oral health as a core part of the NCD agenda and Universal Health Coverage. This led to the endorsement of the Global Strategy on Oral Health, and the Global Oral Health Action Plan 2023–2030 (WHA76), which includes a monitoring framework.
“With the support of partners like Hilfsaktion Noma e.V. and the Borrow Foundation, as well as WHO Collaborating Centres, several countries in the region have taken concrete action: Lesotho, Nigeria and Sierra Leone developed oral health policy documents. Ethiopia and Kenya trained nearly 180 primary care workers and 1200 community health workers using WHO’s online courses on noma and oral health.
“Ethiopia strengthened its noma surveillance system, identifying cases through active case-finding during onchocerciasis mass drug administration campaigns. A new capacity-building project has been launched in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia to improve access to WHO-listed dental materials, supported by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare,” he said.
He, however, noted that despite these advances, the African Region lags behind key oral health indicators.
“For example, only 17 per cent of the regional population has access to essential oral health care services. Progress in disease prevention is also slow, including fluoride use and sugar reduction efforts.
“The oral health workforce also remains inadequate. In 2022, the region had 56,772 oral health workers, including dentists, dental assistants and therapists (0.37 per 10 000 population) – far below the required 158 916 oral health workers (1.33 per 10 000 population) needed to meet the demand,” he said.
He emphasised that countries must accelerate the implementation of the Global Oral Health Action Plan, WHO convened its first-ever Global Oral Health Meeting in Thailand (November 2024).
He further said there is a need to engage multisectoral stakeholders, secure funding through innovative financing mechanisms, such as allocating health tax revenue to oral health, integrate oral health services into national benefits packages, and use a people-centred approach to implementation.
