January 18, 2021 | News

LEIPZIG, Germany: New variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that emerged in the UK and South Africa in 2020 show higher transmissibility. And whereas they are thought not to result in more serious disease or increased morbidity, a leading US expert on public health policy has emphasised that the higher rates of infection resulting from the new strains will mean more deaths. Scientists are scrambling to understand the new variants, and they are concerned that the mutations present in the South African strain may pose complications for the efficacy of vaccines and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing.

January 10, 2021 | Interviews | News

Dr Pooja Chouhan (BDS) successfully transitioned from being a full-time clinician to getting accepted for the MBAEx Program at IIM Calcutta, which is currently ranked the 42nd best college in the world for MBA by Financial Times. She did it with a less than average GMAT Score and in her very first attempt. This is a must-read interview for all those who are aspiring to join a prestigious IIM after their BDS.

January 5, 2021 | Interviews | News

Dr Christian Coachman, the founder and CEO of the DSD-Digital Smile Design company, is well-known for combining his advanced skills, experience and technology solutions. He pioneered the Digital Smile Design methodology and founded Digital Smile Design company (DSD). Since its inception, thousands of dentists worldwide have attended DSD courses, workshops, and the renowned DSD Residency program. In this article, Dr Christian Coachman is interviewed by Dr Rajiv Verma, a popular name in Indian dentistry known for decades of dental education and also for his long association with Digital Smile Design.

December 12, 2020 | News

Ligandal is a regenerative-medicine and pandemic-defence biotechnology company, based in San Francisco, California. Andre Watson, the CEO of Ligandal, who features on the "Forbes 30 under 30 Healthcare for 2021" list for creating "SARS-BLOCK"- engineered proteins that prevent SARS-CoV-2 from infecting cells, is looking forward to investments, financing, strategic partnerships, and growth in the coming weeks.

December 11, 2020 | Events

COLOGNE, Germany: For some weeks or even months, the global dental community has been speculating about whether the International Dental Show (IDS) will actually take place among the global dental community. Today, the organisers made a difficult decision and announced that the world’s leading dental trade fair will not take place from 10 to 13 March 2021 as planned but will be postponed to 22 to 25 September instead.

December 11, 2020 | News

LEIPZIG, Germany: UK health authorities have administered the first doses of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, and public health bodies around the world are now authoring policy documents that will determine which groups will be prioritised in national vaccination strategies. Currently, dental staff in Australia and the US state of California are set to be included in the first phase of local vaccination plans.

December 9, 2020 | News

GENEVA, Switzerland: The World Health Organization’s (WHO) handling of the global pandemic has brought it more criticism than praise, and dentists are among those who have denounced public health guidance from the UN agency. According to dental associations contacted by Dental Tribune International (DTI), WHO has been the subject of unbalanced media coverage relating to its guidance on dental practice.

December 8, 2020 | News

Dr Ashwini Bhangale (BDS) summarizes the latest updates on the use of masks - from the World Health Organization (WHO), released on 1 Dec 2020 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), released on 7 Dec 2020 - both in the context of COVID-19.

December 7, 2020 | News

LEIPZIG, Germany: It is hard to overstate the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on dental trade fairs in 2020. From March onwards, essentially all dental events were shifted online, postponed or outright cancelled, effectively devastating an important and profitable sector of the industry. Though the number of new COVID-19 cases continues to climb by hundreds of thousands with each passing day, there are a number of bright spots on the horizon, leading us to ask what dental events will look like in 2021 and beyond.

December 5, 2020 | News

A cross-sectional study conducted among the dental professionals across India has shown that COVID-19 has disrupted the source of income for the majority of the younger dental professionals.

December 2, 2020 | News

LONDON, UK: The UK has become the first country in the world to approve a clinically tested COVID-19 vaccine after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) authorised the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use. The vaccine is set to be rolled out from next week onwards, and elderly people and NHS staff are to be prioritised—although details on how dental professionals, for example, fit into this plan are yet to be finalised.

November 20, 2020 | News

The World Health Organization (WHO) panel, in its latest statement, has recommended against the use of the remdesivir, an antiviral drug, in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. WHO says there is no evidence that the drug improves mortality.

November 17, 2020 | News

LONDON, UK: The latest results of a promising feasibility study which demonstrated the effectiveness of mitigation methods used in dental practices during aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs) have given an insight into the current situation in the UK.

November 16, 2020 | News

GOTHENBURG, Sweden: Large cranial reconstructions are being increasingly performed worldwide, but remain a substantial clinical challenge. Researchers from Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, in cooperation with Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and Uppsala University, have now developed a novel bioceramic implant. Study results show that it has been proved to stimulate regeneration of natural skull bone so that even large cranial defects can be repaired in a way which was previously not possible.

November 11, 2020 | Interviews | News

Dr Diksha Batra spent the majority of the Covid times of 2020 doing research and establishing safety protocols in the form of videos for dentists under the aegis of the Indian Dental Association. Now, she has authored a book called “Let’s Reset - Pandemic Proofing Your Dental Practice”. She talks about her book in this interview.

November 9, 2020 | News

Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) showed an excellent specificity to 'rule-in' COVID-19 patients within the first 5 days of illness and had a moderate sensitivity. Therefore, patients showing positive results need to be immediately triaged and those with negative tests should be reconfirmed by an rRT-PCR.

November 8, 2020 | News

Rapid Antigen Tests are an easy and economical option for dentists to use in their clinics to identify the potential Covid-19 spreaders visiting their dental clinics. However, these tests are not available for dentists. A letter that was sent to health authorities and ICMR on 17 Sept 2020 has finally received a response on 1 Nov 2020. Read the ICMR responses below.

November 6, 2020 | News

CHICAGO, Ill., USA: According to a new policy from the American Dental Association, point-of-care testing to screen patients for chronic diseases and other medical conditions, including COVID-19, that could complicate dental care or put the patient and dental staff at risk is within a dentist’s scope of practice. “Yet currently, rapid and reliable COVID-19 tests are not available to dentists for in-office use, which makes no sense,” states ADA President Dr. Daniel Klemmedson.