Dentistry and Vaccines

Dear Colleagues,

Vaccines are arguably the greatest medical achievement of all time, and have saved millions of lives worldwide. Therefore, all healthcare professionals, including dentists and dental team members, should enhance primary prevention strategies by conveying high-quality knowledge about vaccines and their effectiveness and safety to their patients.

The scope of this Special Issue goes beyond this classic promotional/educational role of dentists in the vaccination context, as recent outbreaks such as COVID-19, Ebola, monkeypox, and hepatitis made it clear that dental practice is not only a high-risk point for cross-infection but also a useful platform for case triage through oral/orofacial manifestations.

The first thematic area of this Special Issue is vaccine hesitancy (VH), as we try to understand this global health threat’s extent (prevalence) among dental practitioners and dental students. VH is a dynamic concept that is unarguably context-specific; therefore, one can anticipate that vaccine uptake promoters and barriers among dental team members may differ significantly from other healthcare professionals’ groups. Dental schools play a key role here, especially in undergraduate curricula, which are supposed to help future dentists understand their roles regarding vaccines and immunization.

The second thematic area is vaccine safety, which can be evaluated in two distinct vigilance systems: a) passive and b) active surveillance. Oral and oromaxillofacial adverse events (AEs) can be reported/found in both vigilance systems, and they require special attention from dental researchers and practitioners for various reasons. Most of these AEs are mild and rare, but they may undermine the public’s confidence in vaccines because they emerge unexpectedly. Moreover, the causal relationships between these AEs and vaccines remain unverified; the attributes of these AEs, e.g., severity, onset, and duration, need to be evaluated innovatively in order to re-assure the public.

The third thematic area is vaccine effectiveness, as dentists and dental team members are threatened by numerous vaccine-preventable diseases during their routine practices. Therefore, vaccination schedules of dental team members need to be a) recommended in light of the best available scientific evidence, b) checked rigorously, and c) updated regularly. The questions in this regard may vary from “how effective are seasonal influenza vaccines in protecting dental team members?” to “do we need to vaccinate dental team members against eradicated diseases like smallpox and low-incidence diseases like tick-borne encephalitis?”

Dr. Abanoub Riad
Dr. Sameh Attia
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• adult Vaccines
• COVID-19 Vaccine
• dental education
• dental students
• dentists
• Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus (DPT) vaccine
• hepatitis B vaccine
• herpes zoster vaccine
• Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine
• influenza vaccine
• Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine
• oral adverse reactions
• pediatric vaccines
• vaccine hesitancy
• vaccine safety