WOHD: Banigo Harps On Early Check-Ups

As the global community marked the World Oral Health Day on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Senator Ipalibo Harry Banigo, has advised the public to observe periodic check-ups and healthy oral habits to avoid oral diseases that can lead to severe pain and discomfort around their vocal cavity, social isolation and loss of self-confidence.
Senator Banigo, a Harvard-trained Public Health physician, who made this known in a statement to commemorate the 2024 World Oral Health Day in Abuja, noted that the mouth is the gateway to the body, hence, it can lead to many systemic diseases like Osteoporosis, Anaemia, Diabetes mellitus, Leukaemia, fluorosis and even HIV infection(through oral sex). Senator Banigo explained that oral health conditions are largely preventable and can be treated in their early stages, hence, the need for the media and all critical stakeholders to create necessary awareness on oral health.
The former Rivers State Deputy Governor disclosed further that the Senate Committee on Health, under her watch, has articulated key health projects and programmes across the geopolitical regions in the 2024 Appropriation Act, stressing that President Bola Tinubu is poised to revamp Nigeria’s health system, including the provision of affordable, accessible and qualitative oral healthcare through his multisectoral approach to health care service delivery.
She pointed out that the 2024 Appropriation Act captured dental outreaches including the treatment of minor oral cases and provision of artificial teeth at Jos South/East Federal Constituency in Plateau State as well as purchase of dental and medical materials for students training/ community outreach in Federal College of Dental Technology and Therapy, Enugu . According to Senator Banigo, the federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in 2012, launched the first National Oral Health Policy, which was revised in 2023 following evidence-based research which showed a rising prevalence and burden of oral health in Nigeria
Report by the Global Burden of Disease Study of 2019, says about 3.5 billion people worldwide are affected by oral diseases .
The theme for this year’s World Oral Health Day celebration is : ‘A Happy Mouth Is A Happy Body’.