ABSTRACT
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic highly impacted dental healthcare assistance owing to concerns about the risk of transmission by contaminant fluids, droplet formation during dental practice, drastically reducing the number of dental procedures worldwide. This longitudinal study was conducted to monitor SARS-CoV-2 contamination in dental clinics during activities return of students at university.Methods: We evaluated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA by RT-PCR in a dental school clinic environment, on professors, undergraduate dental students, dental assistants, and patients from January 11th to March 12th, 2021 (9 weeks). Serological testing was performed on dental healthcare personnel (DHCP) during the first and last weeks. Additionally, samples with low Ct values were sequenced to identify circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants and possible transmission clusters.Findings: A low number of dental staff (5·8%), patients (0·9%), and environmental sites (0·8%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Most positive cases were asymptomatic to mildly symptomatic, and two asymptomatic DHCP tested positive in longitudinal follow-up RT-PCR test. Previous exposition to COVID-19 were found in 16·2% of the DHCP that showed IgM or IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, and 1/3 of them had undetected antibodies in the last week. Variant Zeta (P.2) were detected. No cross-infection was observed among the participants.Interpretation: Our study suggests that dental practice can be executed safely when control measures and biosafety protocols are applied adequately. DHCP and patient testing, telemonitoring, proper use of personal protection equipment, and surface sanitisation are essential to avoid SARS-CoV-2 cross-infection in dental practice.Funding Information: UFMG/RTR/PRPq, FAPEMIG, CNPq, CAPES/MEC, FINEP, and Rede Corona-ômica BR MCTI/FINEP affiliated to RedeVírus/MCTI.Declaration of Interests: All authors declare to have no conflict of interests.Ethics Approval Statement: The present study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) (Protocol nº31041720.3.0000.5149) (https://plataformabrasil.saude.gov.br/login.jsf). All participants enrolled in this study were volunteers, and their samples and clinical data were collected only via signed consent forms.