UVC disinfection promises dental practices safety and economic efficiency.
Since the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, dental practices have had to cut back on their services to ensure patient safety. The powerful aerosols generated by dental care represent a real challenge for the profession. The dental profession is now obliged to comply with a series of measures to prevent the spread of the virus. UVmastercare offers an optimal and fast solution to the question of the profitability of dental practices: UVC disinfection.
Ensuring the practice of the profession while guaranteeing the safety of the patient.
Numerous studies have shown that the COVID-19 virus is a respiratory virus. It is transmitted through saliva via receptors located in the oral mucosa.
It is also spread in the air through an invisible cloud of micro-droplets smaller than 10 microns. This cloud remains suspended in the air for many minutes.
Speech, coughing, and dental aerosol are generators of viral particles that lodge in the respiratory tract.
“The introduction of this new concept has considerably modified the practices of dental practices” according to Professor Eric Rompen
Therefore, since the virus is present in saliva, the dentist will inevitably create a SARCOV-2 contamination by dental aerosol if he treats a positive and contagious patient. It is currently estimated that 15 to 30% of patients are non-symptomatic but contagious. Therefore, no patient is at zero risk.
Dental aerosols are powerful vectors of the virus!
Instruments such as turbines, contra-angles, ultrasonic scalers, and air blowers generate powerful dental aerosols.
2 types of dental aerosols exist:
– Splatters: macro-droplets projected at 0.5 / 1 meter in the direction of the whip, the tablet, the spittoon, the chair, …
– Micro-droplets that propagate with a range of about 7 meters. A situation that is even more problematic at the present time. When the dentist practices in an open office, the risk of propagation from office to office is increased.
This potentially contaminated air will then fall back and infect all surfaces (desks, work surfaces, products, and floors). In addition, the survival time of the virus is 2 to 3 days on a surface and 3 hours in the air.
What are the current measures to ensure the safety of the patient, the practitioner, and the practice of the profession?
Numerous sanitary measures are currently recommended and applied to counter a potential spread of the virus.
- The design of the architecture of your dental office, if necessary.
- Reduction of the viral load of the aerosol before the intervention. The patient will proceed with an anti-viral mouthwash. The dentist will proceed with the installation of the dental dam as soon as possible.
- Adapting the choice of instruments during the procedure to reduce the range of the aerosol.
- The choice of different ventilation systems to minimize air contamination.
- Spraying antiseptic after each patient visit.
Webinar: UVC decontamination of dental offices according to Professor Eric Rompen
So, there are solutions! Nevertheless, these measures are restrictive for the practice of dentistry. They considerably slow down the dentist’s work and do not treat either surfaces or floors. In addition, they lack concrete proof of effectiveness.
UVC disinfection: an optimal and cost-effective solution.
After extensive research, our UVmastercare team decided to develop the UVC disinfection solution.
Indeed, UVCs with a wavelength of 254nm are efficiently absorbed by the DNA and produce a biocide effect on it. The SARS-CoV-2 virus located in the sputum will be inactivated by UVCs. To produce UVCs, two technologies have been considered. They are based on the ionization of mercury vapors at medium or low pressure. The UV spectra emitted by these two technologies vary greatly. For the medium pressure lamps, the spectrum is narrow. It is almost entirely in the UVC spectrum and is centered on 254 nm.
Therefore, we turned to the exclusively biocide effect of low-pressure lamps because it is more efficient. Among these lamps, the patented Light-tec technology called Amalgam, offering an optimized efficiency, was chosen.
What level of efficiency does UVC disinfection offer?
Regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the most recent studies have tested the effectiveness of the UVC disinfection method. Different exposure intensities (3.7, 16.9 and 84.4 mJ/cm2) were applied at different virus concentration levels (1000, 5, 0.05 MOI). The results show that UVC scattering at a wavelength of 254nm easily ensures virus inactivation and inhibition.
- For the two lowest levels of contamination (0.05 MOI for enclosed spaces and 5 for a patient’s cough), the UVC exposure dose of 4 mJ/cm2 is sufficient to ensure complete virus inactivation.
- As for the highest viral concentration level (1000 MOI), the virus is completely inactive with a dose of 16.9 mJ/cm2.
See the source of these results!
How long does it take to decontaminate a practice with UVC?
To reach a dose of 35 mW/cm3, the treatment time required will depend on the distance from the source to be decontaminated. In the case of a standard practice of 3x4m, the whole room will be decontaminated in 5 minutes maximum.
