Ecuadorean mechanic Darwin Heredia, before opening his Quito garage each morning, sends WhatsApp messages to dozens of neighbours to find out if anyone is showing symptoms of Covid-19.

If any say yes, Heredia alerts a local clinic. Public health officials will then visit the neighbourhood and, if needed, begin to carry out contact tracing, according to Reuters.

Heredia is a volunteer for a Health Ministry programme that since June has used a network of Quito community leaders to help it follow the spread of the pandemic that devastated Ecuador's biggest city, Guayaquil, in the first months of the outbreak.

“My strength in this pandemic is to contribute something and prevent the deaths of neighbours, to help everyone stay well,” said Heredia, 45, a mechanical engineer in the working class Colinas del Norte neighbourhood, in a telephone interview.

The capital has recorded more than 22,000 cases of the around 116,000 registered to date in the Andean country.