Canadian study suggests dentists are less likely to develop Covid-19
New research undertaken by teams based in Canada suggests that dentists are less likely to develop Covid-19 than the general public.
Researchers from the University of Toronto and three other Canadian universities found that dentists have a lower risk of contracting the virus than others.
There were fears that dental professionals could be exposed to greater risks due to their proximity to patients’ mouths and the spread of droplets in the clinical setting.
Michael Glogauer, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry, said that when the study started in July 2020, there was a huge amount of uncertainty about the risks of carrying out dental treatment during the pandemic.
The aim of the study was to get an accurate idea of the level of risk among dentists compared to the general population.
The findings, which have been published in the Journal of the American Dental Association, showed that dentists were less likely to contract Covid-19. A study pool of 644 dentists across Canada was used to collect data between July 2020 and February 2021.
During the trial period, six dentists tested positive for the virus. This equates to an incidence rate of 1.084 per 100,000 dentists. The average for the wider public was 1.864 per 100,000 people.
For more news click here.
Join this Discussion