COVID-19 protocols for Dentists.

Dental care settings invariably carry a high risk to corona infection due to specificity of procedures which involve face to face communication with the patients, exposure to aerosols generated by the high-speed handpieces,  frequent exposure to saliva, blood and other body fluids, direct transmission through cough, sneeze or droplets, contact transmission through the oral, eye and nasal mucous membrane. As a professional, one question that a dentist should ask himself is how to avoid the Corona virus infection from everyday dentistry.  As the pandemic is rapidly evolving, it is very important to follow strictly the protocols published by national dental governing councils.  Equally important is that everyone should ensure that they are accessing reliable information from authentic sources which is timely and accurate.  
In this regard, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, USA) recommend dental professionals especially doctors, staff nurses and other paramedical staff to strictly follow the preventive and control measures to minimize the exposure to such pathogens.

How to minimize exposure to COVID-19?

• Temporarily suspend all elective dental procedures that generate aerosol, which is known to increase exposure potential if patients are infected.
• Urgent Dental Care cases should be treated as minimally invasively as possible, 
• Take proper patient health history and travel history regarding recent visits to COVID-19 affected countries.
• Record patient name and contact details
• Record body temperature before any dental treatments and refer to a physician in case of any suspicion.
• The use of personal protective equipment should be made mandatory. (Use of gloves, face masks, face shields, disposable apron etc)
• Disinfecting  operatories through chemical scrubs/ fumigation
• Strict adherence to handwashing regime.
• Use of autoclaved handpiece for every patient.
• High-speed suction in cases with aerosol generation.
• Use of rubber dam minimizing exposure to saliva and blood

CDC is providing regular guidelines for dental professionals about the precautions to be taken in dental treatments given the present COVID-19 outbreak.  These CDC guidelines can be found on their website (https://www.cdc.gov/) and should be checked regularly because information and needs are emerging and guidelines change as those evolve.