%0 Journal Article
%@ 1438-8871
%I JMIR Publications
%V 27
%N 
%P e54650
%T Infoveillance of COVID-19 Infections in Dentistry Using Platform X: Descriptive Study
%A Al-Mansoori,Alghalia
%A Al Hayk,Ola
%A Qassmi,Sharifa
%A Aziz,Sarah M
%A Haouari,Fatima
%A Chivese,Tawanda
%A Tamimi,Faleh
%A Daud,Alaa
%+ College of Dental Medicine, QU Health, Qatar University, Al Tarfa St, Doha, 2713, Qatar, 974 77193993, adaud@qu.edu.qa
%K COVID-19
%K dentistry
%K infection
%K patient
%K infoveillance
%K platform X
%K Twitter
%D 2025
%7 3.4.2025
%9 Original Paper
%J J Med Internet Res
%G English
%X Background: The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of dental professionals and patients has been difficult to track and quantify. X (formerly known as Twitter) proved to be a useful infoveillance tool for tracing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Objective: This study aims to investigate the use of X to track COVID-19 infections and deaths associated with dental practices. Methods: English Tweets reporting infections or deaths associated with the dental practice were collected from January 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021. Tweets were searched manually using the X Pro search engine (previously known as TweetDeck [X Corp], Twitter Inc, and TweetDeck Ltd) and automatically using a tweet crawler on the X Academic Research application programming interface. Queries included keywords on infection or death of dental staff and patients caused by COVID-19. Tweets registering events on infection or death of dentists, dental staff, and patients as part of their conversation were included. Results: A total of 5641 eligible tweets were retrieved. Of which 1583 (28.1%) were deemed relevant after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of the relevant tweets, 311 (19.6%) described infections at dental practices, where 1168 (86.9%) infection cases were reported among dentists, 134 (9.9%) dental staff, and 41 (3.1%) patients. The majority of reported infections occurred in the United States, India, and Canada, affecting individuals aged 20-51 years. Among the 600 documented deaths, 253 (42.2%) were dentists, 22 (3.7%) were dental staff, and 7 (1.2%) were patients. The countries with the highest number of deaths were the United States, Pakistan, and India, with an affected age range of 23-83 years. Conclusions: The data suggest that analyses of X information in populations of affected areas may provide useful information regarding the impact of a pandemic on the dental profession and demonstrate a correlation with suspected and confirmed infection or death cases. Platform X shows potential as an early predictor for disease spread. However, further research is required to confirm its validity. 
%R 10.2196/54650
%U https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e54650
%U https://doi.org/10.2196/54650