respiratory protection C D A J O U R N A L , V O L 4 8 , Nº 1 0
Face Masks and Respirators for the Dental Health Care Provider: A Review Emma Bhaskar, BS
a b s t r a c t As protocols and standards of personal protective equipment are
changing in the time of COVID-19, dental health care providers must brief themselves on the appropriate products to keep them and their staff safe. This article reviews the current respiratory protection devices used to minimize the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
AUTHOR Emma Bhaskar, BS, is a third-year dental student at the University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. She is from Monterey, Calif., and is a third-generation dentist in her family. She plans to attend a GPR or AEGD program and is particularly passionate about dental public and global health projects. Conflict of Interest Disclosure: None reported.
M
edical masks were first developed and tested in the early 1900s with their use promoted in the 1920s to reduce infections. One of the first studies of the effectiveness of face masks demonstrated a zero incidence of diphtheria in the attendants who wore masks while caring for infected patients. In the 1930s, surgical teams began wearing masks to reduce postoperative infections.1 Dentistry adopted the practice of universal precautions in the 1980s, mostly in response to the bloodborne human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic. Universal precautions are a set of protective guidelines set with the goal of preventing transmission of bloodborne pathogens from exposure to blood or other fluids containing blood by using gloves, masks, eye protection and gowns as protective clothing. In 1996, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) broadened the concept with standard precautions to include protection from bloodborne pathogens as well as
pathogens in any bodily fluid, secreted or excreted.2 The next level of precautions are specific to the pathogen and are called transmission-based precautions, including airborne precautions for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), measles, varicella (chickenpox) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.3 SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory coronavirus that originated in Asia and has spread worldwide. The disease process is called novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) and is caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 disease a pandemic on March 11, 2020. COVID-19 is thought to spread person to person via respiratory transmission. Respiratory droplets are formed when an infected person talks, coughs or sneezes and the virus becomes suspended in a droplet for a period of time. This airborne transmission is thought to occur during close contact, specifically 6 feet or less.4 This is of particular concern in the dental setting due to the close contact OC TOBER 2 0 2 0 533
