GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS AND ADAPTATION IN PEDIATRIC DENTAL SETUP DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic is a major global health challenge. As providers of dental health care, we have a significant responsibility towards our patients to reduce the exposure to the virus. This risk is even more severe in pediatric dentistry, as infected children also have asymptomatic, mild or moderate clinical viral infection and therefore play a vital role in community based COVID-19 transmission. As universal guidelines cannot be applied during the course of COVID-19 outbreak, routine dental procedures can be postponed and only emergency dental procedures must be treated. In the case of dental emergency involving a pediatric patient, dentist should be aware of the safety management protocols that can be followed during the dental practice to protect child patient, parent and themselves against viral transmission. In addition, emerging data on safety protocols is constantly changing as per the state and local health departments. Thus as a dental health professional it’s our duty to be aware of the modifications needed to update our dental practice. In this review article, we have discussed the current guidelines and the modifications which can be adapted to the pediatric dental set up so as to limit the cross-contamination caused by the virus.