Due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, many dental schools and instructors are rethinking the way they teach and interact with students. New perspectives regarding a change in face-to-face activities, social isolation and the reformulation of clinical activities result in a transition toward e-learning and e-teaching processes. In this review, we discuss some favorable aspects and difficulties associated with virtual teaching and learning, searching for available tools and techniques as well as new perspectives.

Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the pathogen SARS-CoV-2, was declared a pandemic in March 2020. Recently, studies have discussed reports of patients infected with COVID-19 associated with vesicular manifestations of Herpes Zoster. The objective of this study was to compare the data from the Unified Health System (SUS) on the number of diagnoses of Herpes Zoster from March to August from 2017 to 2019, with the same period in 2020, in the five Brazilian regions (North, Northeast, Southeast, South, and Midwest). The data were extracted from the public database (DATASUS) of Brazil's Ministry of Health. The data showed an increase in the number of Herpes Zoster diagnoses over the years and the negative impact from the COVID-19 disease, revealing an average increase corresponding to an extra 10.7 cases per million inhabitants during the pandemic in all Brazilian Regions. Therefore, although the association between HZ and COVID-19 is not well established, we observed in this study an increase in HZ cases during the COVID -19 pandemic, which suggests a correlation between these diseases.

Cleft lip and/or palate represent the most common congenital anomaly of the face. To describe the correlation between non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate and gender, and its severity in the Brazilian population. Cross-sectional study, between 2009 and 2011, in a sample of 366 patients. The data was analyzed with descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression with a 95% interval to estimate the likelihood of the types of cleft lip and/or palate affecting the genders. Among the 366 cases of non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate, the more frequent clefts were cleft lip and palate, followed respectively by cleft lip and cleft palate. The cleft palates were more frequent in females, while the cleft lip and palate and cleft lips only predominated in males. The risk of cleft li in relation the cleft palate was 2.19 times in males when compared to females; while the risk of cleft lip and palate in relation to cleft palate alone was 2.78 times in males compared to females. This study showed that there were differences in the distribution of the non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate between males and females.

Cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) represent the most common congenital anomalies of the face. To assess the relationship between maternal smoking, gender and CL/P. This is an epidemiological cross-sectional study. We interviewed 1519 mothers divided into two groups: mothers of children with CL/P (n=843) and mothers of children without CL/P (n=676). All mothers were classified as smoker or non-smoker subjects during the first trimester of pregnancy. To determine an association among maternal smoking, gender, and CL/P, odds ratios were calculated and the adjustment was made by a logistic regression model. An association between maternal smoking and the presence of cleft was observed. There was also a strong association between male gender and the presence of cleft (OR=3.51; 95% CI 2.83-4.37). By binary logistic regression analysis, it was demonstrated that both variables were independently associated with clefts. In a multivariate analysis, male gender and maternal smoking had a 2.5- and a 1.5-time greater chance of having a cleft, respectively. Our findings are consistent with a positive association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and CL/P in male gender. The results support the importance of smoking prevention and introduction of cessation programs among women with childbearing potential.

In this distressful scenario, there are some clues that the scientific output of the country is already declining (^{Bolaños-Villegas et al. 2020}). In order to ascertain this issue further, we did a preliminary analysis associating the Brazilian scientific performance with the governmental financial support in the last 18 years. Figure 1 displays the devastating toll of the reduction of financial support on the scholarly output, mainly after 2011. From 2000 to 2009, there was a steady increase in the budget of MCTIC. Over this period, publications by Brazilian researchers in peer-reviewed journals had leapt from 14,237 to 50,415. The median annual growth rate of research papers was about 13%. This performance has led Brazil to jump from the 21^th to the 13^th position in the world ranking of scientific publications (^{Petherick 2010}). On the other hand, from 2010 to 2017, in parallel with a systematic decrease in MCTIC budget, the median annual growth rate of research papers has plunged to only about 6%. Actually, since 2013, this figure is even worse, with a growth pace of only 4%. Consequently, Brazil´s position in the world ranking of scientific publications has already dropped to the 14^th.

O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar o perfil dos bolsistas de produtividade científica da área de medicina no Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico. Foram analisados os currículos Lattes de todos os pesquisadores da área de medicina no triênio 2005-2007. As variáveis estudadas foram: gênero, categoria do bolsista, instituição de origem, tempo de conclusão do doutorado, artigos nacionais e estrangeiros com o respectivo Qualis, publicação de livros e capítulos, orientações de iniciação científica, mestrado e doutorado, e os periódicos utilizados para publicação. Entre os pesquisadores, houve prevalência do gênero masculino em relação ao feminino (1,94:1), com a maioria dos bolsistas na categoria 2 (51,4%), distribuídos por 13 estados da federação, com predomínio de São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro. Do total, 97,1% dos bolsistas estão vinculados a universidades e 49,4% deles concluíram o doutorado entre 6 e 15 anos. Na produção científica, verifica-se prevalência de artigos internacionais Qualis A e C e nacional B. Quanto à orientação, há prevalência na formação de mestres, seguida de iniciação científica e doutores. Os periódicos que concentraram a maior parte das publicações foram Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research e Transplantation Proceedings. Estudos com metodologias similares poderão ser importantes para melhor aferição da produção científica brasileira em outras áreas do conhecimento, visto que existem poucos estudos nacionais sobre o perfil da produção científica gerada pelos bolsistas de produtividade científica do CNPq