Stakeholders in the health and education sectors have been urged to intensify public education on proper oral health.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Global Foundation for Healthcare and Awareness Inc (GFHA), Mrs Felicia Williams, gave the advice at the annual dental community project organised by the GFHA in Accra on Saturday.
She also advised the general public to adopt the habit of using dental flosses along with toothbrushes.
The two-day project dubbed, ‘Creating healthy smiles around the globe’ was to provide free dental screening and dental extraction for over 800 persons of Joma, a suburb of Accra.
About 50 volunteers from local and foreign based dental organisations participated in the event.
Mrs Williams said a large percentage of the Ghanaian population was not aware of the problems that non-flossing causes indicating that bacteria stored up in the mouth could cause high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases and in worse cases stroke.
“Most schools in Ghana don’t teach proper oral hygiene which includes dental flossing even though they teach the students to brush their teeth so we educate the teachers and parents on the importance of oral care and the proper use of dental flosses and teach them how to use the toothbrush correctly,” she added.
She said that flossing was more important than brushing because the bacteria in hidden spots could not be removed by just brushing.
Mrs Williams stated that her organisation had an interest in improving the healthcare delivery service in the country especially with aspects of oral hygiene and would be willing to collaborate with the government for further projects.
She promised that her organisation would provide a borehole for the community, as part of their goodwill project and also to provide free shoes and clothing for the children in Joma.
“Our main challenge is funding, we receive donations from benevolent persons like toothbrushes, dental floss but we pay for the airfare of our volunteers which is very costly,” she added, and appealed to the public to support the initiative.
By Daniel Asante
