The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare , Dr Harsh Vardhan, has launched the eDantseva website and mobile application in New Delhi with the aim to provide oral health information collected from authentic scientific resources. He also released the Braille booklet and Voice over on Oral Health Education for the visually impaired individuals to access information, along with the oral health posters for pregnant women and children.
Key points:
i. eDantseva: This portal has the information about the National Oral Health Program & the list of all the dental facility and colleges, Information, Education and Communication (IEC) material and a special feature called ‘Symptom Checker’, which gives information on symptoms of dental/oral health problems, ways to prevent these, treatment solution, and also directs the user to find their nearest available dental facility.
ii. Partnership: The Health Ministry launched the first National Oral Health Program(NHOP) on a pilot basis in collaboration with the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi in1999. The program was implemented in one district in five states across the country.
iii. Background: In 2014, Drs. An expert group was constituted for Oral Health run by Jagdish Prasad, Director General Health Services and the National Oral Health Program was initiated in its present form. The Center for Dental Education and Research (CDER), AIIMS, New Delhi serves as the National Center of Excellence for the implementation of NOHP.
iv. Partakers: Dignitaries including Smt. Preeti Sudan, Secretary (Health) and Prof. Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS New Delhi, Dr O P Kharbanda were present at the function.
