Battling Oral Health Crisis in South-East Asia: WHO's Call for Action

On World Oral Health Day, WHO's Saima Wazed stresses the need to prioritize oral health in South-East Asia. The region faces a high burden of oral diseases, with significant impact from smokeless tobacco and areca nut. WHO is committed to technical support for universal oral health by 2030.

In observance of World Oral Health Day, WHO South-East Asia's Regional Director, Saima Wazed, has emphasized the critical importance of prioritizing oral health to combat diseases and improve overall health in South-East Asia. Notably, oral diseases, which affect approximately 3.5 billion people globally, are among the most common noncommunicable diseases.

Wazed highlighted a call to action from the World Health Organization for South-East Asia and its partners to accelerate oral health initiatives, underscoring commitments made in the Bangkok Declaration, "No Health Without Oral Health," from the WHO Global Oral Health Meeting in 2024. The region reports the highest number of oral disease cases across WHO regions, particularly oral cancer, which predominates among males.

South-East Asia is also identified as a significant consumer of carcinogens linked to oral cancer, such as smokeless tobacco and areca nut. With one in two oral cancer cases in the region attributed to these substances, WHO is working on a regional roadmap to mitigate this burden and promote primary prevention strategies, aiming towards universal oral health by 2030.

At the inaugural Global Oral Health Meeting in Bangkok in 2024, countries shared insights and developed National Oral Health Roadmaps as strategic guides. Wazed reiterated WHO's commitment to supporting these efforts, urging stakeholders to utilize WHO's guidance and emphasizing the notion that "A Happy Mouth is a Happy Mind" for World Oral Health Day 2025.

(With inputs from agencies.)