Approval has been given by King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, for a nationwide campaign to fight tooth decay which specialists say afflicts around 90 percent of the Kingdom's children. “The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosque's association with the campaign will lend it a lot of weight,” said Hassan Halwani, head of the National Tooth Protection Campaign. “Tooth decay is a serious problem in our children.” The campaign, organized by the Saudi Dentistry Society at King Saud University and under the supervision of the university's Chair for Child Tooth Decay Research, will see volunteer medical staff targeting around one million children across the country over five years through visits to schools and other educational centers to raise awareness on dental care, as well as setting up stalls and information points in shopping malls. Focus will be primarily on children of primary school age. “This is the largest campaign of its type in the Gulf and Middle East,” Halwani said. The launch of the campaign was first announced two weeks ago at the conclusion of the Saudi International Dental Medicine Conference at the King Fahd Cultural Center in Riyadh. The Ministry of Health is currently running a campaign in the Eastern Province providing free dental examinations to the public. Dr. Ali Al-Dahbous, one of six dentists manning a mobile clinic, said that increased decay in children was of particular concern. “It's due to a lack of brushing, or not brushing properly, and flossing,” Al-Dahbous told Saudi Gazette. The most recent studies have shown that between 74 and 93 percent of the Kingdom's children between the ages of six and seven years suffer from tooth decay.
