Inês Lourenço Cardoso

Increasingly, viruses are considered in the etiology of a wide range of human diseases, from acute self-limited conditions to fatal diseases. In the last decades, we have seen a dramatic change with the global emergence of new viral infections and the appearance, even in resource-rich countries, of some serious infections, hitherto latent, unrecognized or unappreciated in less developed areas.

The majority of viral infections encountered in developed countries were and still are, usually relatively trivial and transient. Gradually, however, unexpected consequences of some oral viral infections have emerged and have been identified.

Recently, the appearance of the global pandemic due to the human transmission of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), represents an important and urgent threat to global health. However, the certainty of evidence regarding oral mucosa lesions in people infected with COVID-19 and its etiopathogenesis is still low. Additionally, the multiple clinical aspects and respective data reported in the few published papers that includes oral manifestations, suggest that the identified lesions may not represent primary COVID-19 lesions, but lesions there are secondary to the infection, due to the immunity impairment that are expected in these patients or adverse reactions to the drugs used in their treatment.

This conference will discuss the published works on the emergence of new infections, especially those that may present oral manifestations, focusing on the current context and the most recent publications related to the oral implications of infection by the new coronavirus.