REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PEKANBARU -- More than 43.8 thousand residents of Riau Province have suffered from health problems due to forest and land fires occurring since the past eight weeks in the region.
"The number of people affected will keep increasing if the smog problem is not overcome," Head of Health Office of Riau Zainal Arifin stated here on Monday.
The data was delivered to the Riau Smoke and Haze Disaster Mitigation Task Force Team.
According to the data, most of the patients, 38,424 of them, suffered from acute respiratory system infection (ISPA).
The regions with the most ISPA patients were Pekanbaru (9,268) and Rokan Hilir Regency (7,520).
At least 2,021 residents also suffered from skin irritation and 1,470 others from asthma.
Smoke and haze have also resulted in 1,344 Riau residents getting treated for eye irritation in public health centers, while about 811 others suffered from pneumonia.
Previously on Saturday (Mar. 8), the Health Office's data showed 38,111 people with ISPA, 1,988 with skin irritation problems, 1,464 with asthma, 1,276 with eye irritation and 811 with pneumonia.
According to data from the Riau Haze Emergency Response Task Force, The Pollution Standard Index (PSI) over Pekanbaru on Sunday reached above 200, indicating unhealthy air.
In Bengkalis and Siak districts, the PSI level hit a record of more than 500 Psi, which was categorized as very hazardous.
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported that on Sunday (March 9) at 5 a.m., there were 368 hotspots of forest and plantation fires across Sumatra Island.
The Indonesian police have named 26 suspects in Riau for allegedly setting the fires deliberately.
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