Mad Cow Disease Watch: Link Between Variant CJD and Dentistry?
Canada.Com has UK agency to probe possible link between variant CJD and dentistry.
Britain’s Health Protection Agency said Monday it is investigating whether the human form of mad cow disease can be transmitted through dental work.
The three-year experiment, begun recently, was announced at the agency’s annual conference at the University of Warwick.
The main routes of transmission of the disease, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans, are believed to be eating infected beef, or through blood transfusions.
“This is really an information gathering exercise,” said Joanne Dickinson, one of the researchers.
When the experiments are concluded, she added, “the Department of Health will have the information to decide what the level of risk is and what measures need to be put in place
Does Britain not have the same CDC Bloodborne Pathogen guidelines like in the USA?
Here is a link to the CDC Recommended Infection Control Practices for Dentistry
And more links here:
- Guidelines for Infection Control in Dental Health-Care Settings, 2003. MMWR, December 19, 2003:52(RR-17).
- Appendix A: Regulatory Framework for Disinfectants and Sterilants;
includes Figure: Decreasing Order of Resistance of Micro-organisms to Germicidal Chemicals - Appendix B: Immunizations Strongly Recommended for Health-Care Personnel (HCP)
- Appendix C: Methods for Sterilizing and Disinfecting Patient-Care Items and Environmental Surfaces
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Also available as a PDF file (PDF-1.2Mb).
- Appendix A: Regulatory Framework for Disinfectants and Sterilants;
- Slide Presentation
This slide presentation is provided by CDC to train clinical dental staff such as infection control coordinators, educators, and consultants on currently recommended infection control practices. It can be downloaded as a PowerPoint presentation or viewed on the Web site.
The Department of Health wrote to dentists in February outlining precautions to prevent transmission of the disease from infected patients. Urging dentists to observe proper decontamination procedures, the letter said that “under these conditions, routine dentistry is understood to be low-risk, and therefore no special infection control precautions are advised for the instruments used on symptomatic or at-risk patients.”
This will be an interesting study but with appropriate sterilization technique there should not be a problem with the spread of this horrible disease through dental treatment.
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