Prophylactic Measures to be Taken by Oral Health Care Professionals During a Pandemic Outbreak of COVID-19

Abstract

Many viruses have been posing threat to the world from time to time and recently in this category, a novel coronavirus called COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2) was detected in December 2019 and is causing havoc all over the world COVID-19 spreading through person-to-person transmission routes including direct transmission, like cough, sneeze, droplet inhalation and contact transmission, like contact with oral, nasal and eye mucous membranes The operators in oral health care profession expose to great risk of COVID-19 infection due to face-to-face communication and their exposure to fluids from the conjunctiva, oral cavity, nose and also other body fluids, and handling with the sharp instruments Oral health care professionals (dentists and dental hygien-ists) play a prime role in preventing the spread of COVID-19 Several dental hospitals and clinics have been completely closed or have been providing minimal treatment for emergency cases However, prophylactic and emergency treatments are being provided in some countries and a few supporting regular dental treatment Oral health practitioners are prone to risk as they are hardly prepared for such unexpected global outbreak Lack of universal protocol or guidelines to control the infection and dental care provision during such a pandemic condition could be of better help The present study fills in the missing gap with necessary recommendations comprising of preventive steps for disease/infection transmission during dental practice to block the operator-to-patient and vice-versa transmission routes in dental clinics and hospitals © 2021, Radiance Research Academy All rights reserved