Covid-19: Ecuador recognizes "problems" in the management of corpses

Text by: RFI Follow

The President of Ecuador acknowledged on Friday that his government had faced "problems" in the management of the bodies of the numerous victims of the coronavirus, due to the collapse of the hospital system and the lack of space in the morgues.

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In March, when President Lenín Moreno declared a state of health emergency, the city of Guayaquil, epicenter of the epidemic in Ecuador, was quickly overwhelmed by the corpses . Videos showing bodies abandoned in the streets of the economic capital had then aroused a wave of emotion.

"  We must recognize that in the initial phase, we had problems in the management of the dead because we made the decision to give a dignified burial to each Ecuadorian, not like in other countries that have opened mass graves  " , the Ecuadorian head of state told a television and radio station on Friday.

►Read also: Shortage of coffins in Ecuador, prisoners put to work

The chaos experienced by the port of the Pacific coast had led the government to create a joint force between the army and the police to remove these hundreds of abandoned bodies. And faced with the lack of places in hospital morgues, the authorities finally installed containers to store the corpses.

Strong excess mortality in March and April

The country, which has 17.5 million inhabitants, recorded Friday more than 26,000 cases of coronavirus, and more than 1,000 deaths since the start of the epidemic. But according to the authorities themselves, this figure would be largely underestimated due to the lack of tests. Ecuador is, proportionally, one of the most affected countries in Latin America. According to official figures, in March and April, 10,169 more deaths than in the same months of 2019 were recorded in the state of Guayas, where Guayaquil is located.

An investigation was also opened by the Ecuadorian prosecutor's office after families complained of having received the remains of other people in place of the bodies of their loved ones who died in hospital.

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(with AFP)

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• Ecuador
• Coronavirus
• Health and Medicine
• Lenín Moreno

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