Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey on Tuesday released the manual on oral health promotion for health workers and schoolteachers with an aim to promote basic oral healthcare and prevent common dental diseases.
At an event here to mark the World Oral Health Day, Choubey said that “It’s high time that good oral hygiene becomes a social movement- Jan Abhiyaan. We need to educate children right at the beginning for good oral health so that they can become our health ambassadors.”
While manual for health workers guide the frontline workers in identifying oral diseases and their duties, the manual for school teachers aims at enhancing the role of teachers and the school environment in child health, said Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan.
Dr OP Kharbanda, Head of the Centre for Dental Education and Research, AIIMS, Delhi said such manuals are the need of the hour given that oral and dental diseases are widely prevalent in India. “Though not life-threatening, these diseases are very painful, expensive to treat and affect quality of life. But these are to a great extent preventable,” he pointed out.