Source: La Ley Orgánica de los Tratados Internacionales

“Plan Fénix” entra en marcha para el manejo y control oportuno de la pandemia por COVID-19 – Ministerio de Salud Pública
https://www.salud.gob.ec/plan-fenix-entra-en-marcha-para-el-manejo-y-control-oportuno-de-la-pandemia-por-covid-19/

In English:Giving a comprehensive response to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to protect the well-being of the population is the objective of the Government of the Meeting. For this reason, the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) developed the “Phoenix Plan”, a proposal that has the focus and collaboration of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), based on ten pillars of action: inter-institutional coordination, communication of risks, epidemiological surveillance and case investigation, control of entry points, national laboratories, infection prevention and control, case management, maintenance of essential health services, vaccination and logistics.

From the Carondelet Palace, the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, led the presentation of this important proposal, emphasizing that its name refers to the bird of Greek mythology Phoenix “that is reborn from its own ashes and rises again haughty and majestic (…). Because that is how the country is resurfacing, after suffering the worst health crisis in the last seven decades,” he emphasized. In addition, he indicated that USD 628 million will be invested to achieve it. “A sum never seen in this type of territorial deployment. For my Government, health is a priority! And this is how we are proving it! ”, He stressed.

The Minister of Health, Ximena Garzón, explained in detail how this plan will be executed in an orderly and effective manner. In the first instance, she indicated that “this launch implies the beginning of a comprehensive epidemiological control plan that is based on ten pillars”, of which two are transversal: coordination and monitoring; and operational and logistical support. These will have the permanent support of the Armed Forces which, to date, have carried out 72,925 logistics operations by means of 9,874 troops.

On the other hand, Minister Garzón explained that the second pillar will be risk communication and community participation. With this, the population will be kept informed about the actions that will be carried out with respect to COVID-19 based on its behavior and the possible appearance of variants in the country.

In addition, there will be established mechanisms for rapid case detection and contact tracing. She explained that for this there is a modern command control panel that allows statistical monitoring of what is happening in the country. In this sense, she reported that Ecuador has a georeferencing system that analyzes variables considered to be at risk, that is, they allow knowing the predisposition for an increase in coronavirus cases in hot spots. “We are one of the countries that performs the most genotyping in South America thanks to the efforts of the National Institute of Public Health Research (Inspi) and the network of universities”, stressed the Minister.

She also reported that “we have thousands of community trackers” who intervene in “hot zones” such as markets and parish health facilities. Along these lines, he commented that they are actively working on the recovery of essential services, a pillar that contains actions such as: decongestion of the health system, supply of medicines and medical devices, strengthening of pre-hospital care and secondary transportation, among others. . In addition, contingency plans at points of entry into the country and the capacity to carry out diagnoses through PCR-RT and antigen tests will be reinforced.

The President of the Republic congratulated the work of the Minister of Health in this task of immunizing the population and at the same time called on citizens to apply the second dose of the vaccine. “We are at the gates of the reactivation that we expected so much. We cannot relax or trust ourselves. We need all your strength to guide our beloved Ecuador towards a future of progress and prosperity”.