Abstract

Despite of various COVID 19 mitigation measures done by health authorities and governments all over the world, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‑2 (SARS CoV2) transmissibility is still high and threatens population. Immunization by safe, effective newly developed vaccines remains the best hope to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries in the world to begin vaccination program where dental practitioners were among health care providers who were prioritized to get the vaccine. The aim of this review is to discuss the developed anti-COVID 19 vaccines and to highlight the anticipated impacts of these vaccines on dental practice in Saudi Arabia. Different strategies for vaccine development were introduced either by conventional methods such as live attenuated virus, inactivated or killed virus, or by next-generation vaccines. So far, out of many clinical trials made for vaccines, few types were agreed for emergency use. The major vaccine types tested in these trials are viral vector-based vaccines, mRNA vaccines, attenuated vaccines, and protein-based vaccines. In Saudi Arabia, the national immunization technical advisory group has authorized Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines and started mass campaigns to vaccinate its citizens and residents on track to reach herd immunity. Although wide-scale vaccination among dental practitioners is expected to have many positive impacts on dental practice and return the profession to pre COVID stage, the high transmission rate and emerging new variants of the virus strongly recommend adherence to guidelines for SARS- CoV- 2 infection prevention during dental practice.

Keywords:

COVID-19; Vaccine types; Dental Practice; Herd Immunity, Saudi Arabia.

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