Adapting for the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador, a characterization of hospital strategies and patients

Garzon-Chavez, Daniel; Romero-Alvarez, Daniel; Bonifaz, Marco; Gaviria, Juan; Mero, Daniel; Gunsha, Narcisa; Perez, Asiris; Garcia, Maria; Espejo, Hugo; Espinosa, Franklin; Ligna, Edison; Espinel, Mauricio; Quentin, Emmanuelle; Teran, Enrique; Mora, Francisco; Reyes, Jorge

Abstract The World Health Organization (WHO) declared coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) a global pandemic on March 11th. In Ecuador, the first case of COVID-19 was recorded on February 29th. Despite efforts to control its spread, SARS-CoV-2 overrun the Ecuadorian public health system which became one of the most affected in Latin America with 22,719 cases reported up to April, 24th. Public health control measures, including social distancing and lockdowns, were implemented at different times in the biggest cities of the country: Guayaquil and Quito. The Hospital General del Sur de Quito (HGSQ) had to transition from a general to a specific COVID-19 health center in a short period of time to fulfill the health demand from patients with respiratory afflictions. Here, we summarized the implementations applied in the HGSQ to become a COVID-19 exclusive hospital, including the rearrangement of hospital rooms and a triage strategy based on a severity score calculated through an artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted chest computed tomography (CT). Moreover, we present clinical, epidemiological, and laboratory data from 75 laboratory tested COVID-19 patients, which represent the first outbreak of Quito city.