Novel corona virus: a global emerging threat

Different viruses have been posing threat to humanity from time to time, and in 2019 a severe respiratory illness (Pneumonia of unknown etiology) reported in Wuhan, Hubei province China, became a major challenge to public health not only in China but also the countries around the world, and is still creating havoc. Despite of intense efforts about how, when and where this disease appeared is still a source of considerable uncertainty. Little is known about the effectiveness of personal protective equipment for health care workers who take care of patients infected with the novel coronavirus but still infection control measures are necessary to be taken to prevent this disease from further spread and to help control the pandemic situation. Like other health workers, dentists are also at the risk of getting this infection, as COVID 19 was recently identified in the saliva of infected patients and thus playing the pivotal role in human to human transmission. As in bronchoscopy, inhalation of air borne particles and aerosols produced during dental procedures with COVID 19 patients can be a high risk in which dentists are directly and closely exposed to infection. Therefore, it is crucial for dentists to refine preventive strategies to avoid the COVID 19 infection by focussing on patient placement, hand hygiene and completely follow the WHO guidelines. Thus in this article we will discuss in detail about the various strains, incubation period, mode of transmission and the preventive measures needed to overcome this threat.