JAKARTA: More than 170,000 respiratory cases were recorded in regions affected by haze in Indonesia, a health ministry official said Tuesday (Sep 22), as the country battles for weeks to control fires that caused the toxic smog.
Blazes in Borneo, Sumatra and Papua have blanketed parts of the vast archipelago of more than 280 million people, as well as neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore, sending air quality indices plummeting.
The toxic smog contains pollutants including PM 2.5, a fine particulate matter smaller than a human hair that could carry health risk such as respiratory infections, health ministry official Then Suyanti told a news conference.
“There were 174,694 cases of acute respiratory infections between August and September 21 in areas affected by forest and land fires,” she said.
More than 40,000 of the recorded respiratory cases affected toddlers, she said.
The overall figure, reported in seven haze-affected provinces across Indonesia, was up from over 113,000 cases reported as of Sep 9.
