The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) School of Dentistry Malawi Dental Project was awarded the 2013 Dr. Thomas J. Zwemer Award from the ADA Foundation.
The award recognizes dental school student programs that provide services to underserved populations outside the U.S. The Malawi Dental Project will receive $5,000 from the ADA Foundation in support of its efforts.
The project, now in its eleventh year, allows four UNC dental students pursuing a Doctor of Dental Science to travel to Malawi in southeast Africa for three to four weeks to provide oral hygiene education, HIV/AIDS education, and basic oral care. Without such projects, most Malawians would go their entire lives without seeing a dentist, according to the dental school.
Malawians without oral pain and active disease receive preventive treatments, and those needing surgical care receive emergency and/or restorative treatment. The students see patients at the Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, at a home for children in Mzuz, and in several small villages.
The World Health Organization's statistics show the acute need for care in this country of 16 million people. The country has only 30 dentists to treat its citizens. Malawians often cannot afford a dentist, let alone travel to a dentist, making access to dental care one of the nation's largest problems.
