RIYADH, 12 March 2007 — About 95 percent of Saudi schoolchildren in the 6-8 years age group were found to be suffering from dental decay, according to results of a survey conducted around the Kingdom.

At a press conference yesterday, Dr. Mohammed Al-Rafie, director of the Dentistry Department in the Health Ministry, said some 250,000 schoolchildren in 42 regions of the Kingdom were surveyed during a three-year period to gauge their level of awareness about oral hygiene.

As a result of the survey, the Health Ministry and the Education Ministry have intensified an oral hygiene awareness campaign targeting both teachers and parents.

Dr. Saud Orfaly, deputy director of Department of Dentistry at the Health Ministry, Dr. Adel Al-Rusayes from the Education Ministry, Dr. Ahmed Abdel Kader, program supervisor at the Health Ministry, Dr. Waheed Al-Khamis, from the Health Ministry, and Turki ibn Moammar, public affairs and community relations manager for the Modern Products Company, were also present at the press conference.

It was also announced that a teachers’ training program would be held in the second phase to encourage teachers to stress to youngsters the importance of oral hygiene. The awareness campaign would later be extended to international schools under the third phase.

Modern Products Co., a Saudi firm, is cooperating with both ministries in implementing the program by producing publicity material, organizing training courses and looking after other aspects of the field work.

Al-Rafie said the problem would not have assumed an alarming dimension if the children had imbibed some basic values of oral hygiene at home. Concerns were raised over the growing tendency among children to have soft drinks and sweets without any regard for oral hygiene. It was also pointed out that parents were largely to blame for their lack of awareness about oral hygiene.

The problem was further aggravated by the fact that maids looking after children pamper them with sweets and carbonated beverages at shops and supermarkets. With parents not minding their children, they develop bad habits that become firmly ingrained as they grow up. It was for this reason that the Health Ministry’s master plan also called for the setting up of 200 dental complexes in addition to 2,000 primary health centers all over the Kingdom. “Our goal is to bring down the incidence of dental decay among children to under five percent by 2020,” Al-Rafie observed.

Dr. Saud Orfaly explained that the ministry had also pressed into service mobile dental clinics which visit different primary schools in each educational zone. “We demonstrate how they should brush their teeth and take care of oral health.” Parents would also be taught the importance of fluoridation as an essential component of oral hygiene.

Asked how the government stands to gain as a result of these preventive measures, Dr. Al-Rafie said an estimated figure was that there would be a 35-fold payback, both in terms of children’s health and the cost of their treatment.