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. 2023 Feb 9:10:1001679.
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2023.1001679. eCollection 2023.

High SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and viral loads in community-dwelling individuals from rural indigenous and mestizo communities from the Andes during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador

Diana Morales-Jadán  1   2 , Alexander Paolo Vallejo-Janeta  1   2 , Vanessa Bastidas  2 , Maria Belen Paredes-Espinosa  2 , Byron Freire-Paspuel  2 , Ismar Rivera-Olivero  1 , Esteban Ortiz-Prado  1   3 , Aquiles Rodrigo Henriquez-Trujillo  1 , Tannya Lozada  2 ; UDLA COVID-19 Team; Miguel Angel Garcia-Bereguiain  1   3
Collaborators, Affiliations

High SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and viral loads in community-dwelling individuals from rural indigenous and mestizo communities from the Andes during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador

Diana Morales-Jadán et al. Front Med (Lausanne). .

Abstract

Background: Neglected indigenous groups and underserved rural populations in Latin America are highly vulnerable to COVID-19 due to poor health infrastructure and limited access to SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis. The Andean region in Ecuador includes a large number of isolated rural mestizo and indigenous communities living under poverty conditions.

Objective: We herein present a retrospective analysis of the surveillance SARS-CoV-2 testing in community-dwelling populations from four provinces in the Ecuadorian Andes, carried out during the first weeks after the national lockdown was lifted in June 2020.

Results: A total number of 1,021 people were tested for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPCR, resulting in an overall high infection rate of 26.2% (268/1,021, 95% CI: 23.6-29%), which was over 50% in several communities. Interestingly, community-dwelling super spreaders with viral loads over 108 copies/mL represented 7.46% (20/268, 95% CI: 4.8-11.1%) of the SARS-CoV-2 infected population.

Conclusion: These results support that COVID-19 community transmission in rural communities from the Andean region was happening at the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador and point out the weakness of the COVID-19 control program. Community-dwelling individuals in neglected rural and indigenous communities should be considered for a successful control and surveillance program in future pandemics in low- and middle-income countries.

Keywords: Andean region; COVID-19; Ecuador; SARS-CoV-2; indigenous people.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study population. (A) Location of the provinces; the gray area indicates the Ecuadorian Andean region. (B) Distribution of tests according to the age of participants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of SARS-CoV-2 viral loads according to sex and age in the study population. Viral load is represented in a log scale.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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