During this year's Sars-Cov-2 pandemic, UEES performed more than 35,000 diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 in its UEESBIOLAB laboratory.
The UEESBIOLAB laboratory together with the laboratory of Omic Sciences, have safely stored the genetic material of more than 2500 samples of this virus from 22 provinces of the country. This allows us to determine the type of virus strain that arrived in each city, if there were mutations during these months and if the vaccines we are importing will be able to protect the population.
The Omic Sciences laboratory uploaded to the GISAID International Network (https://www.gisaid.org), the sequences of 170 viruses from Guayaquil, Samborondón, Daule, Playas and other places of the Ecuadorian coastal area, the most significant results are the following:
At the beginning of the pandemic and as a result of the country's confinement, genetic variants of the virus from Europe and Western Asia predominated in Guayaquil and are currently widely distributed throughout the world.
After the relaxation due to the traffic light regulations, the distribution of the different variants of the virus circulating in the country changed and new variants began to be reported in different provinces.
A new variant of SARS-CoV-2 was identified, which is suspected to play a role in the rapid increase of virus infectivity. No sequence of the viruses studied presents the genetic variation of the virus from England.
In addition, two new variants were recorded for the country; these appeared in Ecuador between July and November, one of these being the first report for South America.
It is encouraging to identify that the rare mutations found in the sequenced strains from Guayaquil are few. However, it is necessary to continue monitoring them to establish their propagation.
