The People's Daily Reports

Nearly 66 percent of China's five-year olds have decayed teeth, although the figure is down 11 percent from a decade ago, according to the Ministry of Health.

China's third national survey on oral health showed each five-year-old child with dental disease had 3.5 decayed teeth on average last year, one tooth less than the previous decade.

"Although China has witnessed an obvious drop in dental diseases, it still lags behind the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard," said Zhang Boxue, a professor with the National Committee of Oral Health.

Tooth decay in five-year-old children in China is much higher than the figure of 30 percent in European countries.

Ye Wei, a pediatrician in Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, said that many parents are reluctant to clean their children's teeth frequently or take them to dentists as they think they can wait for the children's adult teeth to come through.

But the growth of adult teeth will be greatly affected by the decayed primary teeth, and bad habits of eating sweets before bed may accelerate the decay of their teeth, Ye added.

China has a shortage of more than 70,000 dentists and 97.6 percent of Chinese suffer dental problems such as tooth decay or gum disease, statistics show.

Although China has been increasing research funding for dental medicine, the nation has a long way to go to enhance dental health, said Fan Mingwen, head of the stomatology college of Wuhuan University.

Source: Xinhua