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Quema de caña de azúcar como factor asociado a síntomas respiratorios en niños del cantón Marcelino Maridueña

Abstract:

Environmental pollution has become a social and health problem worldwide, mainly in the processes where crops are burned to obtain raw materials, these activities change the natural structure of the environment, giving the environment highly harmful particles for health, such as the case of the Canton Marcelino Maridueña, a place where the sugar cane crops are burned annually, causing ash fall in places close to where the population lives. The most serious and most common health effect is inhaling these polluting particles constantly. The objective proposed in this study consisted in assessing whether this agro-industrial activity is a factor associated with respiratory symptoms in children, the present investigation is of a cross-sectional, observational, descriptive and analytical type where the situation of the patients treated in the Center of Type A Health of the Marcelino Maridueña Canton, through an exhaustive review of the medical records, a sample of 207 patients between 5 and 10 years of age was included and it was found that the most prevalent respiratory disease in 2019 was Acute Rhinopharyngitis, It was evidenced by means of a data collection sheet that in times of sugarcane burning, medical visits for respiratory symptoms such as Cough, Rhinorrhea and Odynophagia increase by 39% in contrast to the winter and post-winter periods. Rhinorrhea is the symptom with the highest incidence in the study sample, in conclusion the environmental pollutants produced by the burning of sugar cane are factors that are evidently associated based on the results of this investigation and the presence of respiratory symptoms that affect the children's health.