Abstract
The shutdown of dental practices after the announcement of COVID-19 has been implemented worldwide. Aerosol generating procedures and face to face contact with the patients put dental professionals at highest risk of disease transmission. There is a looming risk of increasing severity of dental conditions and burden on treatment providers if required dental treatments are kept on hold for an indefinite time. There is a need for definite guidelines to safely resume dental practice in Nepal, based on international experiences during COVID-19 pandemic and international dental societies recommendations. We have compiled multiple recommendations and guidelines from reputed international organizations and collected evidence from dental professional’s work from China and Italy during COVID-19 crisis and attempted to put forward some recommendations and guidelines that can be followed for a safe dental practice in Nepal.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus was initially named 2019-nCoV and officially as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV-2).[1]
For private dental clinics and hospitals in a country like ours that are affected with COVID-19, strict and effective infection control protocols are urgently needed
Singh et al : Recommendations based on International Guidelines for Safe Dental Practice During Covid-19 of epidemiologic information, clinical symptoms, CT imaging findings, and laboratory tests according to standards of the World Health Organization (WHO) (2020a).[7]
Summary
The novel coronavirus was initially named 2019-nCoV and officially as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV-2).[1]. Singh et al : Recommendations based on International Guidelines for Safe Dental Practice During Covid-19 of epidemiologic information (e.g., a history of travel to or residence in affected region 14 days prior to symptom onset), clinical symptoms, CT imaging findings, and laboratory tests (e.g., reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR] tests on respiratory tract specimens) according to standards of the WHO (2020a).[7] It should be very clear to clinicians that a single negative RT-PCR test result from suspected patients does not exclude infection and clinically, we should be alert of patients with an epidemiologic history of travel to and from clusters and restricted zones, COVID-19–related symptoms, contact history with suspected or confirmed patients and/or positive CT imaging results.[8,9,10,11,12] So far, there is no level I evidence from randomised controlled trials to recommend any specific anti-nCoV treatment, so the management of COVID-19 still is largely supportive (WHO 2020a).[7] Currently, the approach to manage COVID-19 is to control the source of infection; use infection prevention and control measures to lower the risk of transmission; and provide early diagnosis, isolation, and supportive care for affected patients.[13] A variety of drugs and interventions are being investigated that are potentially more effective and curative (e.g., lopinavir, remdesivir). Lack of strict supervision and rampant quackery based dental services in our country, could become hotspots for disease transmission in the community
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