Experts advise Mexicans with ‘flu-like symptoms’ to avoid dental treatment

Mexican dental specialists have advised people to avoid or delay dental treatment to keep the swine flu from spreading as dentists or patients may be virus carriers.

Dental experts at the School of Dentistry of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) recommended that people should avoid dental appointments or reschedule them due to the nature of dental treatment.

Enrique Acosta Gio, head of Infection Control and Occupational Safety of the School of Dentistry at UNAM, said: ‘I recommend that, in accordance with standard infection control procedures, dentists with any transmissible respiratory illness should refrain from seeing patients.

‘Likewise, dental treatment could wait in the case of patients who had any flu-like symptoms. Those individuals, whether patients or dentists, experiencing symptoms consistent with H1N1 influenza should be promptly referred to a physician.’

The Mexican Health Ministry reported on Wednesday that 42 people have died in the country due to swine flu – or A/H1N1 flu – while 1,070 cases have been confirmed.