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Twenty-five years ago the ADA Foundation's Health Screening Program
helped identify HBV as an occupational hazard in dentistry. The ADA
responded by being the first to recommend that dentists follow standard
infection control procedures. The ADA subsequently worked with the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop CDC's own
infection control recommendations for dentistry, which were issued
in 1993. Since then, both the ADA and CDC have updated and supplemented
their recommendations from time to time to reflect new scientific knowledge
and growing understanding of the principles of infection control.
In December 2003, the CDC published a major consolidation and update
of its infection control recommendations for
dentistry.1 Although the procedures recommended
in the 2003 document are for the most part
unchanged, the new document does incorporate
relevant recommendations that were previously
scattered throughout several other CDC publications
and contains an extensive review of the science related to dental infection
control.
The 2003 CDC Guidelines are a comprehensive and evidence-based source
for infection control practices relevant to the dental office that
have been developed for the protection of dental care workers and their
patients. The ADA urges all practicing dentists, dental auxiliaries
and dental laboratories to employ appropriate infection control procedures
as described in the 2003 CDC Guidelines, and to keep up-to-date as
scientific information leads to improvements in infection control,
risk assessment and disease management in oral health care.
The ADA has long advocated the use of infection control procedures in dental practice and provided dentists with resources to help them understand and implement them. In addition to the online resources available at ADA.org, the Association has a number of publications that provide detailed information about infection control and treatment of patients with infectious diseases. These include Dental Management of the HIV-Infected Patient and ADA Catalog products, including the Effective Infection Control training DVD (P692), the ADA Regulatory Compliance Manual and the OSHA Training for Dental Professionals DVD (P889).
Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Guidelines for Infection Control in Dental
Health-Care Settings – 2003. MMWR 2003;52(No. RR-17)
Adopted March 2004
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