
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 21, 1994                   TAG: 9403210032
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS                                LENGTH: Short

U.N. AGENCY TACKLES ORAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

The humble toothache can't compare to AIDS or heart disease. But it troubles enough people that the World Health Organization is launching a global crusade against it and other miseries of the mouth.

The U.N. agency's annual World Health Day, April 7, is devoted to oral hygiene. It has also designated 1994 as the "Year of Oral Health."

Thousands lacking basic dental care die each year from preventable and treatable oral cancers or severe oral infections, according to the Geneva-based WHO.

South and Central America trail the world in oral hygiene, with 12-year-old Brazilians, Peruvians, Bolivians and Uruguayans having 6.5 or more teeth missing, decayed or filled, WHO figures show.

Twelve-year-olds in China averaged problems with just more than one tooth. Comparable figures were 1.2 to 2.6 teeth in the United States and zero to just over one tooth in Nigeria, Tanzania, Zaire and Botswana.

- Associated Press

by CNB