Andres Galarraga

SARS-CoV-2 has spread throughout the world, including areas located at high or very high altitudes. There is a debate about the role of high altitude hypoxia on viral transmission, incidence, and COVID-19 related mortality. This is the first comparison of SARS-CoV-2 viral load across elevations ranging from 0 to 4300 m. To describe the SARS-CoV-2 viral load across samples coming from 62 cities located at low, moderate, high, and very high altitudes in Ecuador. An observational analysis of viral loads among nasopharyngeal swap samples coming from a cohort of 4929 patients with a RT-qPCR test positive for SARS-CoV-2. The relationship between high and low altitude only considering our sample of 4929 persons is equal in both cases and not significative (p-value 0.19). In the case of low altitude, adding the sex variable to the analysis, it was possible to find a significative difference between men and women (p-value < 0.05). Considering initially sex and then altitude, it was possib...

Background At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, health workers and first-responders, such as police officers, were in charge of trying to contain a disease that was unknown at that time. The lack of information and the tremendous need to contain new outbreaks put police officers at higher risk. Methodology A cross-sectional study was conducted to describe SARS-CoV-2 infection rates among Police Special Forces Officers in Quito, Ecuador. In this study, 163 community-dwelling police officers from elite divisions voluntarily participated in our SARS-CoV-2 detection program using reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR). Results A total of 20 out of 163 police officers tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, yielding an infection rate of 12.3%. Within this cohort, 10% (2/20) of SARS-CoV-2 positive individuals were potentially super spreaders with viral loads over 108 copies/ul. About 85% of the SARS-CoV-2 positive individuals were asymptomatic and 15% reported mild symptoms related to COVID-19. Conclusions We found a high SARS-CoV-2 infection rate within the special forces police officers that, beyond a high health risk for themselves, their families, and coworkers. Our results point out the need for permanent SARS-CoV-2 testing among asymptomatic essential workers and first-responders to avoid local outbreaks and to prevent work-place absenteeism among police special units.

RESUMEN
La papa (Solanum tuberosum) es uno de los cultivos tradicionales de mayor importancia económica en el Ecuador y el cuarto a nivel mundial. En el Ecuador se ha visto afectado por Rhizoctonia solani Kühn, agente causal de la Rizoctoniosis o costra negra, enfermedad fúngica que ataca a brotes, tallos, estolones, tubérculos, causa necrosis, marchitez foliar y en ocasiones anula la germinación de la plántula. Puede acabar con hasta el 25%  de un cultivo en campos de agricultores. La búsqueda y selección de variedades resistentes es de importancia crucial para hacer frente a problemas que afectan directamente a los cultivos, sean estos de origen fitopatológico, físico-químico o de carácter ambiental. Se buscaron variedades de papa con resistencia a costra negra AG3.
R. solani AG3 fue aislada a partir de esclerocios de papa provenientes de la provincia de Carchi. Se confirmó mediante biología molecular el grupo de anastomosis 3 (AG3) para el género Rhizoctonia con primers específicos. Se evaluaron frente a R. solani veinte materiales germoplásmicos proporcionados por INIAP, en los que se incluían variedades mejoradas y clones promisorios. El material vegetal fue estudiado durante seis meses a nivel de invernadero. Se evaluaron y seleccionaron los tubérculos a la cosecha mediante el criterio de Clive (1971) en base al porcentaje de infección. Se encontró que la variedad I-Puca Shungo y el clon promisorio 12-6-1 presentan Alta tolerancia ante R. solani.

Palabras clave: costra negra, anastomosis, fitopatógenos, germoplásmico, resistencia