Ecuador News

An angry President Lenín Moreno blasted pharmaceutical companies Wednesday night for delays in shipments of Covid-19 vaccines to Ecuador. “We have contracts for these doses that were signed months ago. We have made our payments and have the dates we should receive them and yet the vaccine makers are shipping to wealthier countries, in some...

President-elect Guillermo Lasso’s proposal to use Ecuador’s election system to administer Covid-19 vaccines is being praised by health professionals and politicians. Diana Atamaint, president of the National Election Council said the plan is “workable” and she is ready to commit her resources to a mass vaccination program. National Assemblymen Salvador Quishpe of the leftist Pachakutiks...

By Karl Sweetman In a recent opinion piece published here on CuencaHighLife, the author complained of being “tired of all the sickness, the anti-science, the hatred and the idiocy.” Well, I’m tired too. I’m tired of baseless insults. I’m tired of attitudes like those in this article; a non-stop litany of disparaging smears and downright...

By Vincent Ricci Women’s rights advocates have hailed a recent court ruling that will ease restrictions on abortion in cases of rape in Ecuador, the latest country in Latin America to be swept up in the “green wave” abortion rights movement. In a 7-2 vote on April 28, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador deemed unconstitutional...

Minister of Health Camilo Salinas announced Friday that it has negotiated the delivery of millions of additional doses Covid-19 vaccines from pharmaceutical companies in Russia, China and the U.S. He said that CanSino will deliver three million doses of its Ad5-nCoV vaccine by July and that Gamaleya will send eight million doses of the Sputnik...

By Cal Montesino In the lush province of Esmeraldas, on Ecuador’s northern border with Colombia, farmers are proud to say they produce “black gold.” They are not talking about oil, Ecuador’s main export, but cocoa beans. The smooth, bitter-tasting paste extracted from the beans is the key ingredient in chocolate and one of this Andean...

By Emily Laber-Warren The Sarayaku territory in Ecuador is a 500-square-mile roadless jungle reachable only by helicopter, small aircraft, or a full day’s canoe trip on the Bobonaza River. For outsiders, opportunities to connect with this community of about 1,200 people are rare. So, when anthropologist Eduardo Kohn received a shaky Skype call out of...

In a Thursday news conference, the Ecuador Medical Federation and the Quito Chamber of Commerce asked the government to relax weekend confinement aimed at controlling the Covid-19 pandemic. “The restriction is causing great harm to Ecuadorian families, depriving them of the right to earn an income,” said Carlos Loaiza, president of the Chamber of Commerce....

Four gunmen, two dressed as policemen, entered a hospital in Guayaquil Wednesday morning and killed a Peruvian woman they mistook for their intended target. The armed men asked the nurses at a reception desk for the room number of the man they intended to kill but it turned out he was released on Tuesday. The...