A/HRC/19/73 individuals affected by noma live in the sub-Saharan countries of Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan.71 Cases are reported from other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America,72 as figure 1 shows. A medical paper on noma in the Lao People‟s Democratic Republic concludes that “it is likely that it is much more frequent in remote Asian rural communities than is currently appreciated”.73 Figure 1 Global distribution of noma74 35. According to estimates released by WHO in 1998, 140,000 individuals contract noma on a yearly basis;75 100,000 of these are children.76 The survival rate is between 10 and 20 per cent, which means that at least 110,000 people, the vast majority of which are children, die every year because of noma.77 According to the WHO World Health Report 1998, 770,000 persons survived the disease with heavy sequelae. 78 36. In 2003 data on the incidence of noma have been calculated based on information from patients which have been admitted with the disease in two hospitals in Sokoto, Nigeria.79 By extrapolating the incidence from north-western Nigeria to the countries bordering the Sahara Desert, the research showed an annual incidence of 25,600 cases for 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 Bos, Surgical Treatment, p. 12; Enwonwu, “Noma (cancrum oris)”, p. 148. Bos, Surgical Treatment, p. 12. Srour, “Noma in Laos”, p. 540. From P.E. Petersen, “Oral Health”, in K. Heggenhougen and S. Quah (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Public Health, vol. 4, (San Diego, Academic Press, 2008), p.684. WHO, The World Health Report 1998 - Life in the 21st Century: A Vision for all (Geneva, 1998), p. 45. B. Neville et al., Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, 3rd ed., (Elsevier Health Sciences, 2008), p. 201. WHO, World Health Report 1998, p. 45; P.E. Petersen, The World Oral Health Report 2003: Continuous Improvement of Oral Health in the 21st Century – the Approach of the WHO Global Oral Health Programme (Geneva: WHO, 2003), pp.7- 8. Also A. Fieger et al., “An Estimation of the Incidence of Noma in North-West Nigeria”, Tropical Medicine and International Health, vol. 8, No. 5, May 2003, p. 402. Ibid., p. 403. 13