ROX Index Variation as a Predictor of Outcomes in COVID-19 Patients.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency departments were overcrowded with critically ill patients, and many providers were confronted with ethical dilemmas in assigning respiratory support to them due to scarce resources. Quick tools for evaluating patients upon admission were necessary, as many existing scores proved inaccurate in predicting outcomes. The ROX Index (RI), a rapid and straightforward scoring system reflecting respiratory status in acute respiratory failure patients, has shown promise in predicting outcomes for COVID-19 patients.

Distribution of Escherichia coli Pathotypes along an Urban-Rural Gradient in Ecuador.

Diarrheal diseases are a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in low- and middle-income countries. Diarrhea is associated with a wide array of etiological agents including bacterial, viral, and parasitic enteropathogens. Previous studies have captured between- but not within-country heterogeneities in enteropathogen prevalence and severity.

Evaluation of the microbiological quality of natural processed products for medicinal use marketed in Quito, Ecuador.

Objectives: To determine the microbiological quality of samples from processed natural products used for medicinal purposes and marketed in Quito, Ecuador.

Materials And Methods: Aerobic microorganisms, molds and yeasts were counted by conventional standardized techniques, according to the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP), in samples from 83 products. The microorganisms found were identified and their antimicrobial sensitivity was determined using the agar diffusion method.

Pilot study for the evaluation and adaptation of a Four Item-Acne-Scar Risk Assessment Tool (4-ASRAT): a resource to estimate the risk of acne-induced scars.

Acne-induced scarring is associated with a similar burden as acne, i.e. diminished quality of life, and may be avoided if patients receive appropriate and timely acne treatment.

"I have the right to feel safe": Evaluation of a school-based child sexual abuse prevention program in Ecuador.

Background: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a complex public health problem that has lifelong implications for children's wellbeing. Interventions may provide children strategies to protect themselves against CSA, but few have been studied in Latin America.

Objective: Evaluate the immediate and medium-term impact of a 10-week educational program on children's knowledge of CSA self-protection strategies in Ecuador.

Locals get travellers' diarrhoea too: risk factors for diarrhoeal illness and pathogenic Escherichia coli infection across an urban-rural gradient in Ecuador.

Objectives: Diarrhoea is a common and well-studied cause of illness afflicting international travellers. However, traveller's diarrhoea can also result from travel between high and low disease transmission regions within a country, which is the focus of this study.

Methods: We recruited participants for a case-control study of diarrhoea at four sites along an urban-rural gradient in Northern Ecuador: Quito, Esmeraldas, Borbón and rural communities outside of Borbón.

Bacterial identification of the vaginal microbiota in Ecuadorian pregnant teenagers: an exploratory analysis.

Background: Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a microbial imbalance (i.e., dysbiosis) that can produce serious medical effects in women at childbearing age.

Symptomatic and subclinical infection with rotavirus P[8]G9, rural Ecuador.

During the past decade, rotavirus genotype G9 has spread throughout the world, adding to and sometimes supplanting the common genotypes G1-G4. We report evidence of this spread in a population sample within rural Ecuador. A total of 1,656 stool samples were collected from both patients with diarrhea and from asymptomatic residents in 22 remote communities in northwestern Ecuador from August 2003 through February 2006.

Environmental change and infectious disease: how new roads affect the transmission of diarrheal pathogens in rural Ecuador.

Environmental change plays a large role in the emergence of infectious disease. The construction of a new road in a previously roadless area of northern coastal Ecuador provides a valuable natural experiment to examine how changes in the social and natural environment, mediated by road construction, affect the epidemiology of diarrheal diseases. Twenty-one villages were randomly selected to capture the full distribution of village population size and distance from a main road (remoteness), and these were compared with the major population center of the region, Borbón, that lies on the road.