{"id":620973,"date":"2026-09-11T02:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T02:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/620973\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T02:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T02:16:19","slug":"indonesian-wildfires-cause-respiratory-infections-to-double-in-a-week-health-ministry-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/620973\/","title":{"rendered":"Indonesian wildfires cause respiratory infections to double in a week, Health Ministry says"},"content":{"rendered":"

JAKARTA, Indonesia \u2014 Respiratory infections caused by hazardous wildfire pollution in Indonesia <\/a>have \u200bmore than doubled in just over a week, data from the country\u2019s Health Ministry showed on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Fires have been blazing across vast stretches of forest and peatland throughout the Indonesian archipelago, causing hazardous emissions to \u2060surge, particularly in the hardest-hit provinces on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s wildfire season is the most intense in 11 years as \u201csuper-El Ni\u00f1o<\/a>\u201d weather conditions drive up temperatures and cause punishing droughts. Fire emissions from the country now account for a third \u2060of the global total.<\/p>\n

The number of \u200bpeople \u2060suffering from wildfire-related respiratory illnesses rose to 113,336 as of Wednesday, up from 50,891 on Sept. 1, according to figures Health Ministry spokesperson Widyawati presented at a news conference.<\/p>\n

\"WildfireSmoke in Ogan Ilir on Saturday.Muhammad Fajri \/ Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

More than 12.5 million people \u200bhave \u2060been exposed to haze caused by \u200cfires across seven provinces, said Widyawati, who goes by one name.<\/p>\n

Nearly a million masks and hundreds of oxygen concentrator units have been sent to help residents \u200ccope with the pollution, and thousands of medical \u200cworkers have been deployed to affected areas, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe process of deploying additional medical personnel and various supplies is ongoing. We will continue to monitor which areas require more healthcare workers and \u2060dispatch them there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singapore and Malaysia have also recorded unhealthy air quality levels because of transboundary haze.<\/p>\n

To help Indonesia battle the fires, Japan has sent three CH-47 Chinook helicopters, and they began conducting trial flights on Thursday, said Berton Panjaitan, spokesperson for Indonesia\u2019s disaster mitigation agency.<\/p>\n

The helicopters would aid the Indonesian military\u2019s water bombing operations starting either on Friday or Saturday in West Kalimantan on Borneo, he \u200csaid.<\/p>\n

\"IndonesianIndonesian firefighters in Pamulutan in August.Muhammad Fajri \/ Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Malaysia, which shares a land border with Indonesia on Borneo, has \u200balso offered to help with its aerial firefighting capabilities, according to \u200ca letter from the country\u2019s environment minister \u2060to his Indonesian counterpart.<\/p>\n

Panjaitan said Jakarta was conducting interagency coordination to \u2060discuss Malaysia\u2019s offer.<\/p>\n

From January to July this year, fires burned almost 500,000 acres of \u200cland, government data showed. Environmental \u200bgroup YKAN has estimated that another \u200c600,000 hectares were damaged by fire \u200bin August.<\/p>\n

Among the hardest-hit areas has been the city of Pontianak in West Kalimantan, where the air quality index was 394 on Wednesday, according to Swiss air \u200cquality monitoring firm IQAir. A reading of 300 is considered hazardous.<\/p>\n

Indonesia\u2019s Environment Ministry told Reuters \u200cin a statement that it viewed the hazardous air quality readings in Kalimantan and elsewhere \u201cwith concern.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JAKARTA, Indonesia \u2014 Respiratory infections caused by hazardous wildfire pollution in Indonesia have \u200bmore than doubled in just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-620973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}