Oral health and covid19

Since December 2019, the newly discovered coronavirus (2019nCov) has caused an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan and throughout China. 2019-nCov enters host cells through human cell receptor ACE2, the same with SARS-CoV, but with higher binding affinity. The rapidly increasing number of cases and evidence of human-tohuman transmission suggested that the virus was more contagious than SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. By mid-February 2020, a large number of infections of medical staff have been reported, and the specific reasons for protection failure needs to be further investigated. This new infectious agent is more likely to affect older males and causes severe respiratory diseases indicating that a new person-to-person transmission infectious agent has caused this emergent viral pneumonia outbreak. Although clinics such as stomatology have been closed during the epidemic, a large number of emergency patients still go to the dental clinics and hospitals for treatment. We have summarized the possible transmission routes of 2019-nCov in stomatology, such as the airborne spread, contact spread, and contaminated surface spread. We also reviewed several detailed practical strategies to block virus transmission to provide a reference for preventing the transmission of 2019-nCov during dental diagnosis and treatment, including patient evaluation, hand hygiene, personal protective measures for the dental professionals, mouthrinse before dental procedures, rubber dam isolation, anti-retraction handpiece, disinfection of the clinic settings, and management of medical waste [1].