Knowledge about Cross Infection Procedures among Dentists

There are many routes by which contamination in the dental surgery can be transmitted from patients to dental health care workers and vice versa. Possibilities of infection transmission from patient to patient, dental surgery to the wider community and from the community to the other patients is also high. (1) Documented cases of transmission of Hepatitis B, HIV and other infectious diseases have been reported in the literature. (2) The emergence of HIV, Hepatitis B and other blood-borne viral infections as a major health problem has increased awareness of infection control procedures in dental practice among both the public and the professionals. HIV and Hepatitis B viruses can be transmitted after needlestick injuries and contact with body secretions (3) and also because many infected patients are unaware of their status or not willing to disclose their disease status to health care workers. Many studies have been undertaken to examine the compliance of dentists with infection control requirements. (4-6) Thus raised the need to develop infection control reccommendation to reduce the risk of transmission of blood borne diseases in health care facilities. These procedures were termed as universal standard precautions which consider all blood and blood contaminated fluids as potentially infectious.