Malaria is an important disease in the tropics, and its role as a predisposing factor or co morbidity has been investigated in many diseases including HIV infection and tuberculosis. There are very few studies, which have investigated its role in oral and dental diseases. Our study aimed to demonstrate the possible role of malaria in predisposing to pericoronitis, an infection affecting impacted third molars predominantly.Thirty-eight patients presenting with pericoronitis were tested for malaria parasites and results compared with that obtained from controls that were equally susceptible to pericoronitis but did not have the infection.
19.7% of the study group compared to 6.6% of control group had malaria parasite in their blood. This difference was statistically significant, P=0.018 (Fisher's exact). The odds ratio was 4.3 (95% CI=1.2-17.0).
Malaria appears to be a predisposing factor to pericoronitis in this study. There is a need for further studies on the possible role of malaria in oral and dental diseases.

Oral manifestations of diabetes mellitus have been documented, but the effect of glycemic control on the oral tissues has been scantily reported. The oral health status of 65 metabolically controlled adult diabetic patients attending the Diabetes Clinic of Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, was prospectively assessed over six months and compared with that of 54 non-diabetic acting as controls. The mean duration of diabetes was 100.5+/-85.1 months. The difference in periodontal status of the patients and control, assessed using the Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs (CPITN), was not statistically significant (p=0.07). The degree of hyposalivation between the two groups was, however, statiscally significant (p<0.05). No significant difference was observed in the altered taste, burning mouth sensation, angular cheilitis, glossitis, and stomatitis status of the two groups. We conclude, with adequate metabolic control, the oral health status of a diabetic may not be significantly different from that of a non-diabetic except for xerostomia. A good understanding of the interactions between systemic diseases and oral health is imperative for physicians and dental practitioners. The need for early detection and closer linkages between the dental and medical professions in managing diabetic patients is emphasized.

This study examined the pattern of saving and investment among four hundred cooperative farmers in southwestern Nigeria. Data were collected using structured questionnaires. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression technique. Results show that cooperative farmers in southwestern Nigeria are mostly males, literate and of average age of 47 years. About 40% of total capital borrowed was expended on farm work and mean annual total investment was N75,043.00, with cooperative farmers earning more than 3 times the investment made. Average annual savings was N31,572.00 and this increased in proportion to annual incomes in the area. However, the unavailability and inadequacy of credit was a major problem of the farmers. Different factors influenced cooperative farmers’ saving and investment patterns. Income, loan repayment and amount of money borrowed were significant variables that influenced saving patterns while the fund borrowed significantly influenced investment patterns. These factors therefore have to be considered in designing strategies aimed at improving the saving and investment patterns of cooperative farmers in southwestern Nigeria. Additionally, the saving and investment level of the cooperative farmers can be enhanced if loans are adequately made available and proper supervision and monitoring of funds for specified production purposes are put in place.

The study investigated the relationship between gender and knowledge, attitude and practice of infection control among oral health care workers in the management of patients with HIV/AIDS in Osun State of Nigeria. It was a cross-sectional survey using 85 oral Health care workers (OHCWs) enlisted in the public dental health clinics. A self-administered questionnaire was designed and used for data collection. A total of 85 questionnaires were distributed. The response rate was 93%; 42 (53%) were males and 37 (47%) females. The majority of the respondents were in the 25-40 year old age group and the mean age was 37.3 years. This study found significant differences in gender and ability to identify HIV/AIDS oral manifestations (p<0.001) and recognition of HIV/AIDS risk factors (p<0.001). There was statistically significant gender difference and infection control practices (p=0.02) among the OHCWs. Males were more compliant to the universal cross-infection control principle than the female respondents. A significant association (p< 0.001) was found between OHCW gender and their attitude to the management of HIV/AIDS patients with males showing a better attitude towards the care of HIV/AIDS patients. This study shows that there are significant gender difference in attitudes, behaviour and practices of OHCW with males faring better than the females. National AIDS Control Programme, Health Control bodies, Health educators and other organizations should make efforts to improve the attitude and practice of oral health care workers regarding the management of patients with HIV/AIDS.

The first case of HIV infection was reported in Nigeria in 1986. Since then, the prevalence has risen from less than 0.1% in 1987 to 5.8% in 2002, and an estimated 3.6 million Nigerians now live with HIV/AIDS. More than 40 oral manifestations of HIV infection have been recorded and between 70% and 90% of persons with HIV infection will have at least one oral manifestation at sometime during the course of their disease. Oral health-care workers (OHCWS) are expected to play active roles in the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS. In this study, a one-day workshop was organized for 64 oral health workers in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, focusing on the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, the oral manifestations, control and prevention of HIV in a dental environment, oral care of the infected patient and the ethical, legal and social aspects of HIV/AIDS. Participants' knowledge and practices of infection control were assessed with an infection control checklist administered pre- and post-workshop. Sixty (90.8%) respondents believed that HIV/AIDS was not yet a problem in Nigeria, and 58 (90.6%) believed that drugs have been developed which can cure HIV infection and AIDS. The men complied more with waste disposal regulations than women (P = 0.010). Twenty-nine of 58 (50.0%) did not discard gloves which were torn, cut or punctured. Seven (12.1%) did not change gloves between patients' treatment. Conscious efforts should be made to train OHCWS on all aspects of HIV/AIDS prevention and care. It must never be assumed that adequate information will be acquired through tangential sources.

To evaluate dentists' prescription writing patterns and their appreciation of the characteristics of antibiotics.Evaluation of drug prescriptions written over a six-month period.
Dental Hospital, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
Retrospective analysis of 313 prescriptions written by dentists attending to outpatient dental patients.
The total number of drugs on one prescription ranged from one to seven with Penicillins being the most commonly prescribed drug. Some prescriptions were found to be incorrect with regards to dose, frequency, and duration. Instructions as to the best time of administering drugs with regards to meals were not stated in any prescription.
Improvement through continuing education is desired on the part of prescribers to ensure a good standard of care and avoid practices that may increase antimicrobial resistance. Drug information services including side effects and drug interactions for professionals and consumers at the hospital is highly desirable.

To highlight oral diseases found in an elderly Nigerian population. The records of 494 elderly patients were retrospectively reviewed. The presenting complaints, relevant extraoral and intraoral findings, clinical diagnosis and investigations carried out were recorded. The ages ranged from 55 years to 120 years with almost half (44.0%) in the 60 to 69 year age group. Pain was the commonest presenting complaint (66.2%). Attrition was present in only 8% and was not related to age or sex. Coronal and root surface caries was present in 12.8% and 0.8% respectively and caries was significantly commoner in females and those who were presenting for the first time (p<0.05 and 0.01 respectively). Chronic periodontitis was the most prevalent oral disease (73.9%) and appeared to worsen with age, and decline with the state of the oral hygiene (p<0.05). Denture sore mouth was present in only females (p<0.01). Majority of the elderly (96.0%) had more than 20 teeth while only 16(3.2%) were edentulous. Squamous cell carcinoma was found in 11 patients and it affected significantly more males than females (p<0.05). Significant differences exist in the pattern of oral diseases in Nigeria when compared with the findings in other countries. Such differences might be due to socio-cultural, genetic and environmental factors.

The advent of Information Technology gave birth to Telemedicine, which has led to electronic-based consultations such as electronic referral system in hospitals. In Nigeria, all the state hospitals are having problems in referring patients from one hospital to another. Most of the time before a patient could be referred from one hospital to another (specialist), the patient would have given up the ghost and led to design a system that will handle referral of patients form one hospital to another electronically in Osun State, Nigeria. This paper focuses on referral of patients from one hospital to another over a computer network among the hospitals in Osun State, Nigeria. Patients were referred from one zone to another; the patient's case file and examination data were transmitted over the network among the zones successfully. In conclusion, the HOspital Referral System (HORS) has the ability to guarantee the security of patients' case note, examination data and effective referral of patients, which in turns makes patients treatment timely, efficient and cost effective.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic marks a severe development crisis in Africa, which remains by far the worst affected region in the world. Forty-two million people now live with HIV/AIDS of which 29.4 million (70.0%) are from sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately 5 million new infections occurred in 2002 and 3.5 million (70.0%) of these were also from sub-Saharan Africa. The estimated number of children orphaned by AIDS living in the region is 11 million. In 2002, the epidemic claimed about 2.4 million lives in Africa, more than 70% of the 3.1 million deaths worldwide. Average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is now 47 years, when it would have been 62 years without AIDS. HIV/AIDS stigma is still a major problem despite the extensive spread of the epidemic. A complex interaction of material, social, cultural and behavioural factors shape the nature, process and outcome of the epidemic in Africa. However, too many partners and unprotected sex appear to be at the core of the problem, Even if exceptionally effective prevention, treatment and care programmes take hold immediately, the scale of the crisis means that the human and socio-economic toll will remain significant for many generations. Although 70% of people living with HIV/AIDS are in Africa, only 6,569 (4.7%) of the 140,736 scientific publications on HIV/AIDS, from 1981 to 2000, are directly related to Africa. Effective responses to the epidemic require a multisectoral approach, including governments, the business sector and civil society.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic marks a severe development crisis in Africa, which remains by far the worst affected region in the world. Forty-two million people now live with HIV/AIDS of which 29.4 million (70.0%) are from sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately 5 million new infections occurred in 2002 and 3.5 million (70.0%) of these were also from sub-Saharan Africa. The estimated number of children orphaned by AIDS living in the region is 11 million. In 2002, the epidemic claimed about 2.4 million lives in Africa, more than 70% of the 3.1 million deaths worldwide. Average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is now 47 years, when it would have been 62 years without AIDS. HIV/AIDS stigma is still a major problem despite the extensive spread of the epidemic. A complex interaction of material, social, cultural and behavioural factors shape the nature, process and outcome of the epidemic in Africa. However, too many partners and unprotected sex appear to be at the core of the problem, Even if exceptionally effective prevention, treatment and care programmes take hold immediately, the scale of the crisis means that the human and socio-economic toll will remain significant for many generations. Although 70% of people living with HIV/AIDS are in Africa, only 6,569 (4.7%) of the 140,736 scientific publications on HIV/AIDS, from 1981 to 2000, are directly related to Africa. Effective responses to the epidemic require a multisectoral approach, including governments, the business sector and civil society.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic marks a severe development crisis in Africa, which remains by far the worst affected region in the world. Forty-two million people now live with HIV/AIDS of which 29.4 million (70.0%) are from sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately 5 million new infections occurred in 2002 and 3.5 million (70.0%) of these were also from sub-Saharan Africa. The estimated number of children orphaned by AIDS living in the region is 11 million. In 2002, the epidemic claimed about 2.4 million lives in Africa, more than 70% of the 3.1 million deaths worldwide. Average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is now 47 years, when it would have been 62 years without AIDS. HIV/AIDS stigma is still a major problem despite the extensive spread of the epidemic. A complex interaction of material, social i cultural and behavioural factors shape the nature, process and outcome of the epidemic in Africa. However, too many partners and unprotected sex appear to be at the core of the problem, Even if exceptionally effective prevention, treatment and care programmes take hold immediately the scale of the crisis means that the human and socio-economic toll will remain significant for many generations. Although 70% of people living with HIV/AIDS are in Africa, only 6,569 (4.7%) of the 140,736 scientific publica.tions on HIV/AIDS, from 1981 to 2000, are directly related to Africa. Effective responses to the epidemic require a multisectoral approach, including governments, the business sector and civil society.

A structured questionnaire was administered on 495 women (urban 339, rural 156) from two LGAs of Borno State, Nigeria, using the interviewer method. The age range of the subjects was 12 to 80 years with a mean age (+/- SD) of 35.7 +/- 13.44 years. Majority (83.5%) did not have any formal education. Oral hygiene tools used by the respondents included toothbrush/paste 36 (7.9%), chewing stick 250 (54.9%), charcoal 159 (34.9%) and ordinary water 10 (2.2%). Of those using chewing sticks; 168 (67.2%) use Salvadora persica, 36 (14.4%) use Azadirachta indica and 46 (18.4%) use Eucalyptus camaldulensis. Forty (8.1%) of the respondents do not clean their teeth at all. Strong association was found between choice of teeth cleaning material and educational level (P=0.000). Three hundred and one (60.8%) of the respondents stain their teeth with flowers of Solanum incanum or Nicotania tabacum while, 218 (44.0%) perform tattooing of lip or gingivae and of this number 213 (97.7%) performed tattooing before marriage. Tattooing is usually performed without local anaesthesia with thorns of Balanites aegyptiaca and a mixture of charcoal & seeds of Acacia nilotica var. tomentosa as pigments. It is concluded that traditional oral health practices still constitute important part of the lifestyle in the study population.

In Nigeria, modern dental practice is relatively recent. The dawn can be traced to 1915 when the first government dentist was employed in Lagos, then the country's capital. There are presently four dental schools in the country; each graduates an average of thirty dentists annually. The present study determined the trends in the gender distribution of dental practitioners over the twenty-year period from 1981 to 2000 and used available data to project into the future. Data was collected from governmental and nongovernmental publications. The results indicate that there are now 2,598 licensed dentists serving the country's population of 123 million. A vast majority of these dentists work in urban centers, and only about 20 percent work in the rural areas where over 70 percent of Nigerians reside. There has been a male preponderance in the number of practicing dentists: only fifty-eight (15.3 percent) of 379 dental practitioners were female in 1981, though this figure has risen steadily to 35.1 percent of 2,598 dentists at the end of 2000. However, over the twenty-year period, the percentage of females was consistently higher among dental than medical practitioners. In 1981, for example, the percentage female was 15.0 among both dental and medical practitioners, but by the end of 2000 this had increased to 35.1 percent among dental practitioners and only 19.0 percent among medical practitioners. The imbalance in gender distribution of dental practitioners is steadily normalizing, and projections, using current trends, indicate that gender balance will be attained in the year 2015.

Oral diseases is still a major problem in most developing countries. Within the Republic of South Africa, there remains areas where few or no studies have been done on the oral health status. The emerging district health system with decentralisation of health services to address past inequity in health care in South Africa also provides compelling case for data collection at regional levels.To assess the prevalence and severity of dental caries of school children; determine the caries patterns of the study population and to provide useful data for the planning of oral health services in this region.
Descriptive analytical study.
School children in the Donald Fraser Health District, Venda in the Northern province, Republic of South Africa.
A total of 519 school children in the age groups 6, 12 and 15 years were examined by a calibrated examiner for dental caries using WHO diagnostic criteria. Both the schools, which were divided into rural and peri-urban locations and the children that participated were randomly selected.
A mean dmft(sd) of 2.68(3.29) in six year olds and a mean DMFT (sd) scores of 0.61(1.50) and 1.26 (2.18) were recorded in the 12 and 15 year olds respectively. In the six year olds the upper anterior teeth showed highest susceptibility to caries, clearly indicating that black children suffer from early infant caries. At ages of 12 and 15 the mandibular molars were the teeth most affected. The decayed component constituted the main part of the dmft and DMFT scores. Ninety-nine percent of these lesions were untreated and the restorative care was almost nil.
An important finding was the doubling of the mean DMFT from the 12-year-olds to 15-year olds and the caries levels for all age groups was higher than the provincial average. The treatment required were mostly extractions and simple fillings, the majority of which could be managed by dental auxiliaries using the Atraumatic Restorative Treatment Technique. This study indicates that preventive oral health measures should be implemented on the younger age groups in order to control dental caries.

A course in Public Oral Health is currently offered by the Division of Public Oral Health (POH) to students in their final (6th year) of study for the degree of Bachelor of Dental Science. A fundamental aspect of this project was to shift the teaching methods from didactic to a participatory, student-centred approach, based on current local and international trends in medical, dental and general education. In 1999 the course covering core Public Health topics was presented over a period of 20 weeks to 49 students who were divided into three groups. Staff members were trained in participatory, student-centred teaching methods. An evaluation of students and staff was conducted at the end of the course. Results show that students were satisfied with the teaching methods employed and commended the Division on the organisation of the course. Students were unhappy with the amount of reading required in preparation for weekly seminars. They felt that the course was inappropriately positioned in their final year of study, due to pressure of achieving quotas for the clinical courses. Nevertheless, the main objectives of the Public Oral Health course were achieved through the adoption of a participatory, student-centred teaching approach.