Indonesia records over 333,000 acute respiratory infection cases as fires rage

Indonesia has documented 333,470 instances of acute respiratory infections (ARIs) stemming from forest and land fires across various regions, reported the Health Ministry on Thursday. The director of environmental health, Then Suyanti, stated that daily cases remain elevated, with 4,522 new cases noted. The Air Pollutant Index revealed hazardous air quality in specific provinces: Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and Central Kalimantan.

Exposure to wildfire smoke, composed of fine particulate matter like PM2.5, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and other organic compounds, can lead to health issues such as ARIs, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, eye and skin irritation, and other systemic health effects. President Prabowo Subianto announced that companies from foreign entities, if implicated in recurrent forest and land fires, might forfeit their operating permits, with concessions potentially transferred to younger Indonesians.

Prabowo implied that foreign companies have been implicated in numerous violations of forest fire regulations, some up to 19 times, and suggested revoking their permits if they committed two infractions. Concurrently, thousands of students and demonstrators in Samarinda, the capital of East Kalimantan, called for the government to declare forest and land fires a national disaster, citing an unusually prolonged dry season fueled by El Niño conditions.