FILIPINO dental practitioners should suspend all face to face dental care.
The exemptions are when emergency life-threatening cases require dental procedures during the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) period.
This recommendation comes from the Philippine Dental Association (PDA) and is valid during the ECQ.
In the interest of the public and fellow dentists, we are citing pertinent portions of the PDA guidelines below.
The advisory was updated March 25 and signed by Dr. Maria Liza C. Centeno, chairperson of the PDA Committee on Science. It was reviewed by Dr. Stephen Almonte, PDA president; Dr. Mario Esquillo, PDA past president and chair of the Oral Medicine Department at the De Los Santos Medical Center; Dr. Ricardo Boncan, chair Dental Department of the St. Luke’s Medical Center (Quezon City); Dr. Melchor Sarmiento, president, Philippine Academy of Dental Public Health; Dr. Susan Yanga-Mabunga, board member of the Philippine Academy of Dental Public Health; and Dr. Rioloida Diola, a pulmonologist at the Lung Center of the Philippines and the De Los Santos Medical Center.
The PDA has coordinated with the different clinicians and specialty societies to help address on-line consultation for one-on-one digital consultation with the public.
The PDA is identifying clinics with complete Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and Infection Control Protocols and will then make public the clinics which are capable of providing in-clinic management of urgent cases, the PDA said on its website.
“We cannot underscore the gravity of the current pandemic the entire world is currently facing,” it said.
“While PDA is only a recommending body and does not have in any way have a legal mandate to enforce such recommendations, the guidelines are given to all, based on the following facts known at present time.”
The World Health Organization regards coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a high consequence infectious disease, highly communicable in contact with the virus. The mode of transmission now includes local transmission, wherein patient who does not have any travel history nor contact to other infected persons have positive COVID-19 results.
“Extreme vigilance must be exercised to identify potentially infective patients,” the PDA said, adding it would be a good practice to consider everyone as either “infected or carrier.”
Universal precautions is an approach to infection control to treat all human blood and certain human body fluids as if they were known to be infectious.
“Because of the direct face to face in-clinic contact of dentists, hygienists and assistants to patients, the entire dental staff is regarded as high-risk health workers,” the PDA said.
“While clinics practice infection control measures, regular dental clinics are not equipped with the proper PPEs for a ‘high consequence infectious disease’ such as COVID-19. Under no circumstance should a dentist treat patients without PPEs.”
The use of N95 mask, and one-time use disposable gowns, disposable caps and air-tight booties are the only recommended protective barriers that health workers MUST use in treating patients at this time.
“Absence of these devices will put the entire staff in danger of contracting the virus and consequently spreading the virus to your respective families and communities,” the PDA said.
For those who need to see emergency patients, strict adherence to the PPE devices, its proper donning and doffing must be followed.
The PDA cited an online link for more information: (https://m.youtube.com/watch?) and the Handbook of COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment (https://drive.google.com/)./PN
