hyderabad: the indian dental association (ida) on thursday announced the launch of ‘smile through the millennium’, a national oral health programme. the programme, which will begin on friday, will continue till october-end. according to ida president u s krishna nayak, the national programme would comprise school dental health education, teachers’ training programme, parents orientation programme and country-wide oral health week. nayak said over 100 branches of the association would take part in the campaign to educate school children about the basic rules of good oral hygiene practices such as proper brushing techniques and eating habits. the programme aims to cover 40 lakh school children between the age group of 6 and 12 years. the campaign would also cover over 100 towns across the country. quoting epidemological studies, nayak said about 90 per cent of the country’s population suffers from various types of dental diseases. there was a low dentist ratio to total population, there was only one dentist for about 35,000 people. an important element of the `smile through the millennium’ programme would be the `oral health week’, which will be conducted for the general public and school children. the health week would be held between october 21 and 28, according to a press release.
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