Noma campaign aims to wipe out disfiguring disease

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - A global campaign was launched on Thursday to raise awareness about Noma, a disease which deforms malnourished children's faces for life.

Organizers marking the first Noma Day said the goal was to eliminate the little-known scourge, which the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates strikes 140,000 poor people a year, mainly in Africa.

As many as four in five victims die from the gangrenous infection, while survivors are left with yawning holes in their faces -- unable to eat, speak, smile or breathe normally again.

"We are bringing this scourge -- unacceptable in the 21st century -- out from the shadows," Bertrand Piccard, president of the International NoNoma Federation, told an experts' meeting.

Noma is directly linked to malnutrition and poor hygienic conditions, but if caught early can be treated with disinfecting mouthwash and vitamins, as well as antibiotics.

The disease symbolizes the gap between extravagant consumer societies and starving populations, according to Piccard, a Swiss psychiatrist best known as the first hot-air balloonist to circle the globe with Briton Brian Jones in 1999.

The devastating necrosis starts as a benign lesion in the mouth, often as gingivitis. Left untreated it quickly devours the soft and bone tissues of the face, disfiguring its victims who are almost always very young children.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter of the disease, which also affects parts of Asia and Latin America.