A RETIRED orthodontist from Tunbridge Wells is leading a fight to help children in third world Africa who have suffered horrific facial disfigurement.

Allan Thom, of Warwick Park, is co-founder of the charity Facing Africa, an organisation which sends surgical teams to reconstruct the faces of those who have survived the disease Noma.

Noma is a little-known but devastating flesh-eating infection contracted by more than 100,000 children each year in sub-Saharan countries from Senegal to Ethiopia, a region known as "the Noma belt".

The World Health Organisation estimates 90 per cent of its victims will die.

Those who live are left with hideous scars and face social exclusion.

Most survivors are unable to speak and eat properly because the scar tissue restricts jaw movement.

Mr Thom, who was a consultant at the Kent and Sussex Hospital and the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, said the charity's work helped give victims a new face, and a chance of a normal life.

The 68-year-old added: "Many of these children have no social interaction. In an uneducated society there is a stigma that Noma is the stamp of the devil.

"We hope to give these children a new life by rebuilding their faces so they are accepted in society."

The father-of-two and grandfather-of-one has recently returned from Ethiopia where he worked as part of an advance team which assessed children and took them to a rehabilitation unit in preparation for surgery.

Prospective patients arrived by the day, many from remote villages, but some cases were so advanced they were untreatable and had to be sent home.

The main surgical team undertook 50 operations on the trip – faces were rebuilt, jaws released, tumours removed and clefts repaired.

Facing Africa sends four surgical teams to Africa every year and each trip costs £40,000 in transport, materials and drugs.

The majority of its funds come from sponsorship money raised by competitors in the Marathon des Sables, a six-day, 150 mile endurance test, considered by many to be the toughest foot race on earth.

The dedicated efforts of fundraisers has allowed the charity to carry out more than 1,000 facial reconstructions since it was set up in 1997.

Mr Thom said Noma, which could easily be prevented by an anti-septic mouth wash, will never be stamped out: "It is a disease of poverty and malnutrition and it is totally impossible to feed Africa, particularly in remote areas."

But while most will die or live a life of suffering, Facing Africa is doing all it can to provide hope to as many children as possible.

For more information about the charity and Noma, or to donate, visit www.thisis kent.co.uk/links