What dentists need to know about COVID-19

Baghizadeh Fini, Maryam

This article aims at collecting all information needed for dentists regarding the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the world by reviewing articles published by now. In late 2019, a pneumonia outbreak of uncertain etiology happened in Wuhan, China. There were many reports related to a live-animal and seafood market, supporting that the pathogens were transferred from animals to humans, rapidly evolving into transmission from human to human. The pathogen was classified as 2019 Novel Corona Virus (2019-nCoV), and the disease was named COrona VIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Given that COVID-19 has lately been detected in infected patients’ saliva, the COVID-19 outbreak is an alert that all dental and other health professionals must be vigilant in defending against the infectious disease spread, and it may enable to assess whether non-invasive saliva diagnostic for COVID-19. There has so far been no evidence from randomized controlled trials to prescribe any particular anti-nCoV treatment or vaccine, and COVID-19 management has been widely supportive. Since the ACE-2 was expressing on oral cavity mucosa, there is a potentially huge COVID-19 infectious vulnerability risk for oral cavity and brought up a proof for the future prevention procedure in dental practice and daily life. As a result, the whole dental teams should be vigilant and keep patients and themselves in a safe environment by following the guideline in this study.