Saliva: Both a Threat and an Opportunity in Covid-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 pandemic, continues all over the world with the increasing number of confirmed cases and performed tests day by day. It has been shown that collecting nasopharyngeal samples, as the most commonly prefered method to perform RT-PCR, has disadvantages like causing discomfort and bleeding in patients. Sample collecting procedure also renders healthcare professionals by exposing them to the risk of transmission of the virus related to the direct contact with patients. These disadvantages make this procedure undesirable for the researchers and forces them to search for an alternative technique. At this point, saliva appears as an opportunity, regarding its high viral load. On the other hand, this high viral load poses a threat, especially for professions such as dental practitioners, with too much aerosol exposure. Since dentistry is a branch of health that constantly needs direct operations, it is necessary to be protected from the virus as much as possible while caring for the patient. A literature review was done using electronic databases "PubMed," "Google Scholar," and "Cochrane Database," on January 2021. Studies have proposed many different preventive measures in this regard. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to draw attention to the saliva by bringing together the recent research and also to provide information and a perspective to dental clinicians about both prevention and a potential diagnostic technique.