Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2018-03-23, 14:29:10 | version 1.38.0
2 Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition | September-October 2014news Group Editor Daniel Zimmermann newsroom@dental-tribune.com +49 341 48 474 107 Clinical Editor Magda Wojtkiewicz Online Editors Yvonne Bachmann Claudia Duschek Copy Editors Sabrina Raaff Hans Motschmann Publisher/President/CEO Torsten Oemus chief financial officer Dan Wunderlich Business Development Manager Claudia Salwiczek event Manager Lars Hoffmann Marketing Services Nadine Dehmel Sales Services Nicole Andrä event Services Esther Wodarski Media Sales Managers Matthias Diessner (Key Accounts) Melissa Brown (International) Peter Witteczek (Asia Pacific) Maria Kaiser (North America) Weridiana Mageswki (Latin America) Hélène Carpentier (Europe) Accounting Karen Hamatschek Anja Maywald Executive Producer Gernot Meyer Dental Tribune International Holbeinstr. 29, 04229 Leipzig, Germany Tel.: +49 341 48 474 302 Fax: +49 341 48 474 173 info@dental-tribune.com www.dental-tribune.com Regional Offices Asia Pacific Dental Tribune Asia Pacific Ltd. Room A, 20/F, Harvard Commercial Building, 105–111 Thomson Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong Tel.: +852 3113 6177 Fax: +852 3113 6199 The Americas Tribune America, LLC 116 West 23rd Street, Ste. 500, New York, N.Y. 10011, USA Tel.: +1 212 244 7181 Fax: +1 212 244 7185 Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition Editorial Board Dr. Aisha Sultan Alsuwaidi, UAE Dr. Ninette Banday, UAE Dr. Nabeel Humood Alsabeeha, UAE Dr. Mohammad Al-Obaida, KSA Dr. Meshari F. Alotaibi, KSA Dr. Jasim M. Al-Saeedi, Oman Dr.Mohammed Sultan Al-Darwish Prof. Khaled Balto, KSA Dr. Dobrina Mollova, UAE Dr. Munir Silwadi, UAE Dr. Khaled Abouseada, KSA Aiham Farah, CDT Dr. Rabih Abi Nader, UAE Dr. George Sanoop, UAE Retty M. Mathew, UAE Rodny Abdallah, Lebanon Victoria Wilson, UK Partners Emirates Dental Society Saudi Dental Society Lebanese Dental Society Qatar Dental Society Oman Dental Society Director of mCME Dr. Dobrina Mollova mollova@dental-tribune.me +971 50 42 43072 Business Partner | BDM Tzvetan Deyanov deyanov@dental-tribune.me +971 55 11 28 581 designer Kinga Romik k.romik@dental-tribune.me The Ebola virus epidemic: A concern for dentistry? ByProf.L.Samaranayake T wenty-two years ago, a seminal report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in the US, titled “Emerg- ing Infections: Microbial Threats to Health in the United States”, warned of the dangers of so- called newly emerging and re- emerging diseases. The concept of “emerging infectious diseas- es”, introduced then by the IOM is now well entrenched, and to our chagrin we have witnessed many such diseases over the last two decades. These include vari- ant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease/ bovine spongiform encepha- lopathy, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and Middle East re- spiratory syndrome, and above all the pandemic of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (Aids), which has claimed mil- lions of lives the world over. The re-emerging infectious diseases we have seen include diseases caused by meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and mul- tidrug-resistant and extensively Interestingly, the concept of “emerging infectious diseases” is not new. Indeed ancient Greek, Roman and Persian writers doc- umented the emergence of many new epidemics. In more recent times, the scientist Robert Boyle presciently observed in 1865 that “there are ever new forms of epidemic diseases appearing […] among [them] the emergent va- riety of exotick and hurtful […]”. Arguably though, the most note- worthy relatively new emerging infectious disease with the great- est impact on the dental profes- sion has been the human immu- nodeficiency virus and Aids. And now we have a severe epi- demic of Ebola virus infection. It is back with a vengeance, this time in West Africa, with over 380 cases and a 69% case fatality ratio at the time of writing. The culprit is the Zaire ebolavirus species, the most lethal Ebola virus known, with case fatality ratios up to 90%. According to the IOM report, there are many reasons that new diseases emerge and re- emerge. These include health care advances with the attendant problems (e.g. transplantation, immunosuppression, antibiotic abuse, and contaminated blood and blood products) and human behaviour, including injectable drug abuse and sexual promis- cuity. Societal occurrences, such as economic impoverishment, war and civil conflict, too are critical according to the IOM. The current outbreak of Ebola virus infection is a perfect storm created by a lethal combination of these factors, including ram- pant deforestation, poverty and the war-stricken situation in many African countries. So how does Ebola spread? Ac- cording to World Health Orga- nization reports, Ebola virus disease (EVD) is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, se- cretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals. Hu- man-to-human transmission is through direct contact (through broken skin or mucous mem- branes) with the blood, secre- tions, organs or other bodily fluids, such as saliva, of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids. Transmission through the air has not been documented in the natural en- vironment, nor have there been any case reports of transmission A laboratory worker in the Democratic Republic of Congo does a test using a micropipette. Quick on- site laboratory diagnosis enable the World Health Organization response team to precisely diagnose new suspected Ebola patients within two to six hours. (Photograph courtesy of WHO/Christopher Black) International investigators survey the MH17 crash site, 5 August 2014. (Photograph courtesy of OSCE/Evgeniy Maloletka) through saliva contamination. Infection in health care settings has been due to health care workers treating patients with suspected or confirmed EVD, especially when infection con- trol precautions were not strictly practised. Reports indicate that those who recovered from the disease could transmit the virus through their semen for up to two months after recovery. EVD is a severe acute illness characterised by the sudden on- set of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vom- iting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and both internal and external bleed- ing in some cases. Oral manifes- tations, such as acute gingival bleeding, have been reported. The mortality rate of EVD is very high and 50–90% of patients die owing to the profound systemic haemorrhage or its complica- tions. The incubation period of EVD is 2 to 21 days. Up to now, there have been no reported cases of transmission of EVD in any dental settings. How- ever, the fact that it is transmit- ted through human secretions, which includes saliva, and that the incubation period could last up to 21 days implies that den- tal care workers in the endemic areas of the virus, such as West Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, may run the risk of acquiring the disease if strict standard in- fection control measures are not routinely followed. In dentistry, we are constantly exposed to these emerging and re-emerging infectious threats and we cannot afford to let our guard down. Vigilance, aware- ness and good clinical practice with standard infection control at all times are fundamental to prevention, as yet-unimagined new diseases surely lie in wait. Although we have made spec- tacular technical and scientific advances since the release of the original IOM report some two decades ago, it appears that hu- mans are still defenceless in the face of the relentless march of our microbe foes. drug-resistant tuberculosis. Malaysia provides dental records for MH17 investigation ByDTAsiaPacific P UTRAJAYA, Malaysia: The Health Minister of Malaysia has confirmed that the den- tal records of all of the Malay- sian victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 have been collected and sent to the Netherlands for fo- rensic identification. According to Datuk Seri Dr Subramaniam s/o K.V. Sathasivam his ministry has also provided DNA samples and fingerprints of the deceased passengers of the flight, which was bound for Kuala Lumpur on 17 July, to an Interpol disaster re- sponse team. Forty-three Malaysian passen- gers, including 15 crew mem- bers, were on board the Boeing, which is believed to have been shot down by pro-Russian rebels over Donetsk in Ukraine three weeks ago. Since access to the crash site remains difficult ow- ing to ongoing conflict in the re- gion, only 70 coffins containing the remains of the victims have been collected and sent to the Netherlands so far, according to Subramaniam. He told the New Strait Times newspaper in Kua- la Lumpur that the first results from the identification process, of whom were of Dutch descent, were killed in the incident, which is still under investigation by in- ternational organisations, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. which is currently underway at a military facility in Heelsum near Amsterdam, are expected to be available within the next two weeks. A total of 298 passengers, most