Health in Ecuador
An extensive and proactive program for public health includes actions such as teams of nurses going door-to-door offering influenza vaccines to residents.
Ecuador falls into the "fair" category when evaluating the right to reproductive health because the nation fulfilled only 89.8% of expectations, based on its level of income.
[2] Health conditions in Ecuador vary within its three distinct climatic regions: tropical, Sierra highland, and Amazon rainforest.
Most Ecuadorians live within the Sierra, such as the cities of Quito and Cuenca, where health conditions most commonly associated with the tropics do not exist.
Despite a lack of general agreement in the medical community about the prevalence of altitude-related conditions, some visitors to the highlands may experience symptoms.
The lower atmospheric pressure of the Sierra can cause difficulty in breathing, nausea, and dizziness, but these conditions are typically not of long duration and require a period of reduced activity and conservative eating and drinking for acclimatization.
Before returning to practice in Ecuador, it is common for these doctors to complete specialized residencies in the major cities of Argentina and Chile, among other countries.
Additionally, Cuban nationals are numerous among the professors in the faculties of medicine in the major cities of Ecuador, including Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca, and Ambato.
[6] Specialty hospitals are also part of the public health care system to target chronic diseases or a particular group of the population.
[6] Most of the rural communities in Ecuador have a sizable population of indigenous people; the doctors assigned to those communities, also called "rural doctors", are in charge of small clinics to meet the needs of these patients in the same fashion as the day hospitals in the major cities.
[12] Many diseases are prevalent in Ecuador, mainly due to environmental conditions, geographical location, and lack of health care.
Currently worldwide there has been a rapid increase in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases, which in part is explained by an important health issue which it is malnutrition.
Concomitantly, the prevalence of stunting in children aged under 5 years was 23.2% (95% CI 23.3, 23.5), a wide range (14.9-44 %) in children (age 5–11 years) and in adolescents, varied between 19 and 24.8%[16] The double burden of malnutrition its mainly related due to the economic and sociodemographic growth causing a modification of the diet patterns increasing the consumption of high energy aliments rich in fat and nutrient poor, combined with a sedentary lifestyle.
[15] According to the WHO, it is crucial to integrate dual duties to be able to coordinate a simultaneous approach focused on ending malnutrition.
[13] Ecuador is divided into four geographic regions; the Andes, the Amazon Basin, the Coast, and the Galapagos Islands.
[22] Water-borne diseases like cholera can be transferred to humans through frequently drinking water that is not cleaned and filtered.
