Performing Maxillofacial Surgeries during Covid19: Current Challenges and Possible Solutions
Abstract
The world is witnessing an invasion from a new corona virus, which resulted in more than one million of deaths. Most of the sectors such industrial, economy, and tourism are facing a crisis, hence the workers in the field of medicine, considered to be the barrier to fight this invasion. This new virus seems to have two main transmission routes: direct and contact, which it will open a high chance of infection among professional health providers, especially, surgeons and dentists. Maxillofacial and dental surgeons, considered to be essential professional health experts that perform, multiple surgeries and dental procedures every day, consequently, these professions will exhibit a high risk of getting infected by Covid19, due to that, this review article aimed to discuss the possible ways that it may help in optimizing the level of infection control.
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Introduction
Wuhan witnessed unidentified disease which characterized by multiple symptoms such as tiredness, pneumonia, lack of appetite, and vomiting.1,2 Then in the following months this new diseases spread to Europe, Middle east, and most of the part of world, which led the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic alert in march 2020.3
Covid-19 considered to be the name for this disease, which is originally caused by a Severe Air Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).4 According to both genetic and epidemiological research, the diseases begin its the invasion from animal to human, then subsequent to start from human to human.4,5
According to world-meter website, there are more than one million death until 21 November 2020. Hence, multiple health organizations and authorities around the world such as, Center for Disease Control and Prevention have instruct the dentists and their teams to give a regulation for their services to provide them with guidance which will enable them to obtain protection for their patients from this infection.6
Performing dental and maxillofacial surgeries may put the dentist and his/her team in a high risk of transmission to Covid19, as they may deal with Asymptomatic (carrier) patients as well as patients with an acute respiratory illness may present for dental treatment at outpatient dental settings.1,6,7Hence, in this review article, we focused in the challenges, precautions and solutions, that the dental and maxillofacial surgeon should be aware of to decrease the chances of the transmission of this pandemic disease.
Conclusion
Working and performing the daily routine surgeries seems to be difficult through the period of covid-19. Multiple consideration should be done to create an ideal working environment, hence the surgeons and their team have a lot of new duties, such as re-visiting their infection control protocols, using special personal protective equipment, and prioritizing their surgeries. Consequently, all of that consideration may help in optimizing the level of infection control of the operation room during Covid19 period.