The Federal Government has announced fresh plans to upgrade and equip dental facilities across the country to improve the quality of oral health services and expand access to comprehensive care.
It also stated that work is underway to fully integrate oral health into the primary health care system, allowing primary health centres to offer a wide range of services, including oral hygiene education, counselling, diagnostics, fluoride treatment, restorative care and referrals where needed.
Minister of State for Health, Dr Adekunle Salako, disclosed this during an event held in Abuja to commemorate World Oral Health Day.
According to him, the government is reorganising and expanding the Basic Health Care Provision Fund to ensure more resources go directly into oral health services, particularly for vulnerable groups.
Dr Salako highlighted the global weight of oral diseases, describing them as the most common non-communicable diseases worldwide, affecting nearly half of the global population.
“They are accompanied with high social, economic and health system impacts, affecting people throughout their course of life, causing pain, disfigurement, social isolation, distress and death,” he said.
He raised particular concern about noma, a rapidly progressing gangrenous infection of the face that mostly affects malnourished children with poor oral hygiene living in extreme poverty. He noted that it often begins as a simple gum infection and can cause severe disfigurement or death within days if left untreated.
Nigeria, he said, lies within the “noma belt” of sub-Saharan Africa, with the North-West recording the highest prevalence.
“Factors such as poverty, malnutrition and poor oral hygiene continue to drive the incidence, while many cases go undiagnosed and untreated due to poor surveillance systems, leading to avoidable deaths,” he added.
The minister stressed the urgency of confronting the disease, stating that the ministry has begun training primary health workers, community health workers and traditional birth attendants to recognise, treat and refer cases of common oral conditions at an early stage.
“This approach is helping to reduce stigmatization, raise awareness about oral health, and ensure early identification of noma, cleft lips or palates for appropriate referral to comprehensive treatment often provided free. More dental professionals will be employed to provide services at these PHCs,” he said.
Continuing, he noted: “Our commitment is to ensure that Nigerians have access to appropriate oral health services as part of our universal health coverage agenda. We will continue to train and engage more professionals and ensure that all dental professionals—dental surgeons, therapists, dental technicians, technologists and assistants—are given the opportunity to play their part.
“Noma is preventable and treatable. It is therefore unacceptable that any child in our country should suffer irreversible disfigurement or die from it.”
At the event, Médecins Sans Frontières Country Representative, Ahmed Aldikhari, outlined the organisation’s work with the Federal Ministry of Health and the Sokoto State Ministry of Health at the Noma Children’s Hospital.
He said MSF has provided a wide spectrum of services, ranging from acute noma treatment and major facial reconstructive surgeries to oral physiotherapy, community outreach, nutrition support and mental health care.
Aldikhari revealed that more than 1,600 major reconstructive surgeries have been carried out for 1,074 patients over the past decade through 33 surgical missions. In 2025 alone, 99 surgeries were performed for 89 patients.
He also noted that 28 national surgeons and 14 anaesthetists have received specialised training from international experts, boosting Nigeria’s long-term capacity to manage noma.
Emphasising a key breakthrough in the fight against the disease, Aldikhari said: “A major milestone in our collective work was the inclusion of noma in the WHO list of Neglected Tropical Diseases, as a result of strong global advocacy led jointly by the Nigerian government and MSF.”
