Challenges and Experiences of Dental Medicine in Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Shi, Junfeng; Wen, Jin; Zhang, Wenjie; Wang, Jie; Zhu, Ziyuan; Avivi-Arber, Limor; Jiang, Xinquan

The world has been suffering incredible loss due to a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2' (SARS-CoV-2; 2019-nCoV). The disease was later named the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). The transmission routes of COVID-19 include respiratory transmission, aerosol transmission, and contact transmission. Many dental diagnosis and treatment procedures generate droplets and aerosols, and thus both dental staff and patients are at a high risk of becoming infected and transmitting COVID-19 to others. Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital is a comprehensive hospital with 18 craniofacial-/dental-related departments. During the outbreak of COVID-19 and up to the present date, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in this hospital thanks to strict protocols for infection prevention and control. In this communication, we would like to share with the prosthodontic community our experience in the prevention and control of COVID-19 in our dental departments and hope it will contribute to the worldwide efforts to overcome the global COVID-19 pandemic.