This week two cases of this mutated virus were detected in Ecuador.
Vaccination marked a before and after regarding mortality from COVID-19. From February 2020 until the last December 15, they are registered 33,586 deaths from this disease in Ecuador, between confirmed and probable deaths.
The 71% of these deaths occurred during 2020. At the end of January of this year, the vaccination process in the country officially began, which accelerated after the change of regime with the arrival to power of the current President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, last May.
Until last July 31, when the fulfillment of the campaign promise to inoculate more than nine million Ecuadorians with the first dose in the first hundred days of the Lasso government was announced, the number of deaths from COVID-19 reached 31,631 , that is, 94% of the total deaths that exist so far.
Although there is a rebound in cases that is not yet so pronounced, according to specialists consulted, the use of available beds to care for infected patients also fell.
The Ministry of Public Health reported as of July 20 last an occupation of 44% of the 2,265 beds assigned throughout the national health system (public and private network) for hospitalization due to COVID-19.
In the case of beds for intermediate care, the occupancy reached 65% and in those assigned for COVID-19 in Intensive Care Units (ICU) it was 80%.
Occupancy percentages fell to 26% in beds available for hospitalization, 23% in intermediate care beds, and 63% in ICU beds, according to the latest report with a cut to December 15 at the national level.
The infectologist Washington Alemán affirms that according to the figures of the Ministry of Public Health there is a sustained and slight increase in the number of cases, but there is still no collapse of the health system. This as a result of last November’s holiday, the longest since the pandemic was declared in Ecuador. “Although they are not comparable figures with the beginning of the pandemic.”
Analysis should focus on seeing the evolution of this slight growth. If the increase continues or the curve stabilizes, Aleman indicates.
However, the relaxation of biosafety measures makes the virus circulate in a greater proportion, says the epidemiologist Andrea Gómez. “This also gives that in the case of mutating, of changing at some point it has an advantage over previous variants, among those confirmed (by the World Health Organization) as being of concern.”
The omicron, for example, transmits much faster than the delta variant. “It is thought to be between two and three times as much, which is equivalent to 10 or 15 people… What remains to be known is whether it really causes a disease equal to, less mild or more serious than the one caused by delta and the final effectiveness of the vaccines is not known either. They do have an effect, but how much is unknown ”.
The one that prevails in the current cases of Ecuador is the delta. “The rebound we are experiencing now is due to this variant and the holidays we had. The December one (Christmas and New Year’s Eve) we will see in four weeks ”, says Gómez.
Each person with delta, says Enrique Terán, a professor at the San Francisco de Quito University, can infect between 4 and 10 more. “Each person with an omicron seems to be contagious between 14 and 16 other people, which means that they have an extremely large capacity to spread”.
The protection of vaccines in general against the delta variant is reduced on average by almost 50% of the total effectiveness they had. “Pfizer’s protects 46%, AstraZeneca’s about 39% (of those vaccinated)”Says Terán.
The specialist Gómez affirms that it is necessary to reinforce the monitoring of positive cases of COVID-19 with epidemiological surveillance. “I have a confirmed case and I surround his contacts, how many more have appeared from this.”
Given the new variants, vaccination for the population under five years of age is extended in other countries of the region, such as in Chile. “In the case of the country, that change has not yet taken place.”
The 36.6% of minors between 5 and 11 years of age in the country have been vaccinated with the second dose with a cut-off of last December 15.
Alemán indicates that there are certain groups that are more likely to have decreased immunity or vaccine effectiveness.
“An elderly person whose defenses are poor and cannot maintain them beyond six months, or a patient with rheumatic disease in whom the efficacy of the vaccine is not maintained beyond six months. In both cases, the third booster dose helps this population group in the face of exposure to this virus or some variant to strengthen their immune system ”.
This reinforcement does not imply the relaxation of biosafety measures. “It has to be clear that the pandemic does not end. The vaccine reduces the risk of complications, but if you expose yourself to an infected person because you can become infected, you will have less risk of complicating yourself and dying in relation to the unvaccinated, but there is no total guarantee ”, emphasizes Alemán. (I)
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