By Omolabake Fasogbon
Toothpaste brand, Colgate has urged all to cultivate healthy oral practice to prevent dental cavities and other oral diseases.
The firm while marking this year’s World Oral Health Day, WOHD, also restated its commitment to promoting campaign and activities that will educate people on why and how to keep the oral health.
In marking the day, Colgate partnered with Nigerian Association of Dental Students Association(NADS) and the Nigerian Medical Students Association(NMSA) in reaching out to persons in rural communities across 31 states.
At each location, the firm along with partner associations engaged community dwellers with sensitization walk as they combed densely populated areas around activation points including markets and residentials. Members of the community were enlightened on how to prevent dental cavities and the importance of ensuring a good oral hygiene practice.They were later checked at the Dental Checkup stand by licensed and certified dentist.
In Abuja, the team visited Paiko community in Gwagwalada, engaging families, market women, children and conducted household calls to preach the message of adopting a good oral care habit in line with the theme of 2021 WOHD, “Be Proud of your Mouth”.
Chief Executive Officer of Colgate Palmolive Tolaram, Mr. Girish Sharma, noted that this year’s WOHD campaign was apt in that it holds the potential to transform the lives of many across the nation.
He stated that the company’s partnership with NADS and NMSA further strengthened the impact of the exercise, in that it facilitated the possibility of simultaneously combing through the nooks and crannies of over 44 communities across 31 states.
He added, “The target population reach for this exercise is over 18,000 for both adult and children, this is in line with Colgate’s 2021 goal of touching more than 2million people through its Free Dental checkup camps present in 9 states across Nigeria.
“Oral care is a very important aspect of the human overall health and wellness, and preventing cavity is one of the cardinal parts of enjoying a good oral health. It is therefore imperative to create awareness around oral care.
“We are committed to proffer effective solutions to the spread of tooth cavities as well as aggressively promoting preventive oral care in Nigeria.This is why we have decided to go national with the campaign to deeply penetrate the rural communities and ensuring that they also benefit from the free dental screening opportunity.
Commenting, President of NADS, Michael Adejumo said, “We embarked on this campaign to support the brand and to enhance publicity on good oral care habits across every state in Nigeria and around the world.
On his part,President of NMSA, Dan-Buba Mohammed said, “It is a responsibility of medical Students and medical profession to be able to make advocacy campaign that while doctors treat diseases in the hospital, medical students will be preventing the occurrence of these diseases”.
WOHD is celebrated throughout the world on March 20 of every year.It offers the dental and oral health community a platform to take action and help reduce the global disease burden of oral disease.
