Only 17% of Africans Have Access to Essential Oral Healthcare – WHO

 

The Acting Regional Director for Africa at the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, has highlighted the significant gaps in oral healthcare across the African region, noting that only 17% of the population has access to essential oral health services.

Speaking in his message to mark World Oral Health Day 2025, commemorated annually on March 20, Dr. Ihekweazu emphasized that despite global progress in oral health care, the African continent continues to lag behind on key indicators.

"Oral diseases such as dental caries, gum disease, and tooth loss affected approximately 42% of the population in the WHO African Region in 2021," he stated. "The region also records the highest number of cases of noma — a rapidly progressing, non-contagious gangrenous disease of the mouth, primarily impacting young children. If left untreated, noma carries a high fatality rate, and survivors often face lifelong impairments, disfigurement, stigma, and discrimination."

To address these challenges, Dr. Ihekweazu noted that member states adopted the Regional Oral Health Strategy 2016–2025, which integrates oral health into broader noncommunicable disease (NCD) prevention and control programs. He also underscored that risk factors such as tobacco use, alcohol consumption, high sugar intake, and socioeconomic conditions are common to both oral diseases and other NCDs like diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease — reinforcing the need for an integrated approach.

At the global level, he referenced the Seventy-fourth World Health Assembly's 2021 recognition of oral health as an integral component 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, which includes a comprehensive monitoring framework.

Several African nations, with support from WHO partners including Hilfsaktion Noma e.V., the Borrow Foundation, and WHO Collaborating Centres, have already taken steps to advance oral health initiatives. For example:

• Lesotho, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone have developed national oral health policy documents.
• Ethiopia and Kenya have trained nearly 180 primary care workers and 1,200 community health workers using WHO's online courses on noma and oral health.
• Ethiopia has also strengthened its noma surveillance system, identifying cases through active monitoring during onchocerciasis mass drug administration campaigns.
• A new capacity-building project, supported by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, has been launched in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia to improve access to WHO-listed dental materials.

However, Dr. Ihekweazu stressed that significant challenges remain. "The oral health workforce across the region is severely under-resourced. As of 2022, the African Region had 56,772 oral health workers — approximately 0.37 per 10,000 population — well below the estimated 158,916 workers (1.33 per 10,000 population) required to meet current needs," he said.

Additionally, progress in key preventive measures, such as increasing fluoride usage and reducing sugar consumption, remains slow.

To accelerate progress, he called on member states to fully implement the Global Oral Health Action Plan. He also encouraged governments to engage multisectoral stakeholders, explore innovative financing mechanisms such as allocating health tax revenues to oral health initiatives, integrate oral health services into national healthcare packages, and adopt people-centred approaches to service delivery.

He noted that WHO's first-ever Global Oral Health Meeting, held in Thailand in November 2024, provided a platform for countries to collaborate and reaffirm their commitment to improving oral health outcomes worldwide.