Sir, we read with great interest the letter 'COVID-19 and consent'.1 A similar look into patient data in our hospital's oral and maxillofacial surgery department (OMFS) during the COVID-19 pandemic shows a fascinating insight. Being a tertiary centre in a developing country and being in a city of 1.5 million+ people, the department witnessed a tenfold rise in space infection requiring surgical intervention during the first month of national lockdown, when all the dental clinics across the city were closed. This experience highlights the significance of access to oral health and the role of dentists in preventing more adverse space infection arising due to spread of periapical infection. COVID-related mucormycosis cases requiring extensive antifungal therapy and surgical debridement dominated the second wave of COVID-19. Immune dysregulation caused by SARS-CoV-2 and the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and corticosteroids, particularly in patients with poorly controlled diabetes with ketoacidosis, is likely to have contributed to the rise.2 With a prevalence for mucormycosis estimated to be nearly 80 times higher (0.14 per 1,000) in India compared to developed countries, timely intervention and management was called for, with patients as young as 25 years old presenting to the department requiring surgical debridement.3,4

While the department of OMFS provided emergency services in the first wave and later extensive surgical debridement for patients with mucormycosis, the job is far from over for teams of prosthodontists and maxillofacial prosthetists, as providing a better quality of life to patients who have undergone maxillectomy and other resections remains a top priority. COVID-19 has shown us the importance of primary oral healthcare, as an absence of such services, due to nationwide lockdown, elevated what would have been tooth infection into a more complex facial space infection. It further strengthens the importance of multidisciplinary teamwork in dentistry, as displayed by maxillofacial surgeons providing frontline life-saving services and prosthodontists who can further provide a better quality of life for patients.