Luke Wordley (left) Chief Executive of Dentaid with Ian Passey of Dentists' Provident who sponsored the prize, drawing the winning ticket.

A series of generous donations by delegates at the BDTA Showcase raised enough funds to send a Dentaid surgery to Chad, one of the world's poorest countries.

Dr Eloi in his 'surgery' in Chad.

A draw at the event, sponsored by the Dentists' Provident Society, together with donations from dental companies provided the £3,000 needed to send equipment to a clinic in the Koumra region of Chad.

The prize draw was for a weekend for two in Paris and was won by Dr Shabir Pandor, a dentist from London.

Dr Eloi, the dentist in Chad, has until now been using a treadle powered drill and very basic equipment to serve a population of three million people. The surgery funded by the Showcase delegates will revolutionise dental care in the area, according to the dental charity.

Chad, a large landlocked country in central Africa is one of the world's poorest nations where many have a life expectancy of only 48 years.

With the north of the country in the Sahara desert and the south so wet that the roads are often impassable, it has only 16 dentists in the country, a ratio of 1:500,000.

Two thirds of the 8 million population depend on subsistence agriculture for a living and it has the least industry in equatorial Africa.