Three Necessities For Dental Health

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30610, 28 November 1964, Page 16

Three Necessities For Dental Health

Three things are necessary to good dental health in the community—a sugarrestricted diet, oral hygiene, and waterfluoridation, Dr. M. Chaves, chief dental officer to the World Health Organisation, Geneva, said in Christchurch yesterday.

Dr. Chaves is on a short tour of countries in the west and south Pacific and SouthEast Asia, to look at the organisation of dental services and make contact with those who run health services and dental schools, and with leaders of dental associations. In New Zealand, Dr. Chaves’s itinerary has been arranged by the Health Department, and he has been accompanied by the director of dental services (Dr. G. H. Leslie). The two men worked closely together at a meeting of the W.H.O. expert committee on dental health called in Geneva last month to discuss the organisation and development of public health services.

Dr. Chaves was the organiser and secretary of the meeting, and Dr: Leslie was the consultant, appointed by the New Zealand Government at the request of W.H.O. Dr. Chaves is a Brazilian, a graduate of the dental and medical schools of the University of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. He was in private practice in Rio for nine years and then became chief of the dental section of the federal health service for two years.

He was given a fellowship by the Kellogg Foundation to take a public health course at the University of Michigan, gaining the Master of Public Health degree. For eight years he was with the American regional office of W.H.O. in Washington, and then last year took up his present position on the retirement of the New Zealander, Dr. Bruce Rice.