Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Ecuador extends across human health, animal production, agriculture, and the environment, yet national evidence on bacteriophages as an alternative has remained scattered across indexed articles, theses, and institutional repositories. We mapped that evidence through a One Health lens, following the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR). Five bibliographic databases and publisher platforms (Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Springer, Scopus, and SciELO) and 21 Ecuadorian repositories were searched for studies published between 2021 and 2026. From 592 records, 38 reports met the eligibility criteria: 6 peer-reviewed articles and 32 gray-literature documents (7 postgraduate and 25 undergraduate). Inter-reviewer agreement was 89.1% (Fleiss' kappa = 0.773; 95% CI, 0.635-0.912). Research concentrated in animal health (44.7%) and human health (31.6%), with fewer reports in agriculture (10.5%), poultry (5.3%), aquaculture (5.3%), and the environment (2.6%). Institutional output was highest in Pichincha, Tungurahua, and Guayas; journal articles were affiliated with institutions in Pichincha, Guayas, and Azuay. No included reports were assigned to institutions in the Amazon or Galapagos regions. The most studied hosts were Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Vibrio spp., Listeria spp., and Ralstonia solanacearum. Methodologically, the corpus spans phenotypic characterization, PCR- and restriction-based differentiation, whole-genome sequencing, and functional validation, but these approaches coexist rather than form a maturation gradient. Genomic safety claims rested mainly on the absence of known lysogeny, resistance, and virulence genes, and functional transduction assays were largely absent. Ecuadorian bacteriophage research has begun to shift from demonstrating lysis toward molecularly defined products, but translational readiness is limited by fragmented publication, geographic concentration, and incomplete characterization. Decentralized laboratory capacity, national phage collections with deposited genomes, and standardized characterization pipelines would strengthen the field.