Lourdes Sisa’s 12-year-old son had a sore throat. His mother took him this Tuesday, January 31, to the white tents that are outside the hospital of the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute (IESS) Quito Sur, where he treats people with respiratory symptoms.
In addition to the sore throat, the child began to have a fever and a headache.
A flu was presumed, because the boy’s classmates were with these respiratory conditions in his educational unit. Although it was also believed that he could be infected by the environment itself.
At the minor’s house there are no other relatives with respiratory conditions.
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Sisa said that in December 2022 her entire family, of five members, fell ill with COVID-19, but they had no major problems. She put it down to the booster shots they got.
In the adult section of that hospital was a 24-year-old woman, who works in a call center, waiting to be served.
With a mask that covered her mouth and nose, she indicated that she had nasal congestion, sore throat and ears, since last Saturday.
He ruled out coronavirus, but he did believe that he could have the flu. At his job, three colleagues had the same condition. He was self-medicating because he just thought it was the flu.
In the first two weeks of 2023 there is a slight decrease in respiratory conditions in hospitals
Sergio Carrasco, medical technical director of the IESS Quito Sur hospital, mentioned that on Monday the 30th there were 807 emergency services, 484 were adults and 323 children.
Of the adults, 64 had some type of respiratory pathology and 211 pediatric patients registered mostly mild respiratory conditions.
Carrasco attributed this to the Christmas and New Year holidays, as well as the climatic stage due to the presence of rain and cold.
“It is not a regrowth because there is no substantial rise as we had in the months of November (…), we could say that there is a slight increase in the respiratory part…”, said the official.
After the December festivities, Karina Zambrano, Epidemiological Surveillance analyst of the Zonal 9 coordination of the Ministry of Public Health (MSP), maintained that there was no outbreak of cases and that, on the contrary, they have been declining.
Of the reported patients there were more cases of coronavirus than of influenza.
The official said that the use of masks among the population continues and that there is interest in getting vaccinated, so there have been no serious cases.
According to Víctor Álvarez, from the Pichincha Provincial Medical Observatory, a group that brings together public and private doctors, there was a small upturn that was not significant.
One of the causes, he opined, is the coverage of the vaccines that cause the infections to present mild symptoms, those who were treated – for the most part – at homes.
But people don’t go for diagnostic tests either, he mentioned.
Last December, the Emergency Operations Committee (COE) did not establish any restrictive or mobility measures.
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When asking the epidemiologist Catalina Yépez whether or not there was a rebound in cases of respiratory conditions, she replied that it would seem that there was not.
He recalled that in the post-festivities season, respiratory symptoms with symptoms suggestive of flu, cold or even COVID-19 could not be confirmed, because it was expected that there would be many infections, but this high presence of cases was not reflected in hospitalizations, much less in deaths.
The fact that there is a high percentage of vaccination, at least with two doses, helped to avoid the need to go to a health home, he said.
Yépez pointed out that there were no notifications of cases either because family groups probably acquired a test, applied it at home, discarded it, or with a mild condition managed it at home or on an outpatient basis in hospitals.
He added that, in general terms, at the national level there is a low risk in relation to the coronavirus.
He also said that it will be necessary to see what happens with the subvariants in China, maintain biosecurity measures and make bivalent vaccines available. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
