Malawi government has admitted that the country has only ten active dentists and has one of the highest dentist-population ratios in the world. As the population is estimated at 16 million, Malawi may rank poorly on the international scale as regards to dental and oral hygiene.
Minister of health Peter Kumpalume confirmed the development and said the situation is worrying and stressing and demands urgent measures to address.
“Worse still only three of the available ten work in the public sector and the rest in private and the dental equipments in the public health needs replacement,” Kumpalume said.
Five of the available dentists are foreign experts and with the current population this means one dentist needs to serve about 1.6 million people, contrary to World Health Organisation (WHO) standard of 1 dentist to 100, 000 people.
According to WHO 90 percent of the world’s population is affected by oral diseases which are preventable.
Shocking indeed the intire malawi? haaa! kkkkk
Whats dat all about,,,,coz we Dental Therapist we do work meant for Dentits and sipaoneka gap and instead of them saluting us they r buzy talking of there shortage yet they r them amene amati khomelera kuti sisakapange upgrading,,, no wonder more Dental Therapist r moving outside de country for greener pastures.. Madolo ndi ndima therapist coz de do de duty work at health center n district level mpaka pa Central surgery!
khanda la zaka 50 wawa ,loyamwa,lokwawa lopanda mano(malawi)
inu musemuja simumaziwa kuti kuti ma dotolo azamano aliipo ochepa….zausilu
3 District = 1 dentist eish mbola zenizeni
Dishonest reporting – surely there are private practitioners!
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Zachambadi, only 10
The problems govt cant employ more dentists as for now, they shouldve jus told the truth and stfu !!
what criteria are they using to come up with such small number?There are so many dentists from College of Health sciences all over Malawi. Oooh let me read the full story first!
they are dental technicians!!
who are these referred in the post? Much of the work is done by these technicians who are more than 4,000!
I guess cause the demand is also low.
really? #Malawi embarassing
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Yaaa ne the whole malawi only 10 dentists? Guys our country is very poor endeed.
Smh, son
Malawi is poor on everything .I say everything.