Smoke-bound South gets 60,000 facemasks
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Public Health Minister Witthaya Buranasiri yesterday said 60,000 facemasks had been sent to Satun, Songkhla, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat to help protect vulnerable people from smoke inhalation following forest fires on Indonesia's Sumatra Island that ha
A consignment of 50,000 other facemasks were being kept as back-up at the Disease Control Department because the situation would likely linger, he added.
After fear that residents’ health may be threatened, Witthaya instructed local hospitals to prepare medical supplies and be on alert for signs of smoke inhalation, especially among those with heart disease or respiratory ailments, elderly persons and children.
Songkhla’s Disease Control and Prevention Office 12 will distribute 12,000 facemasks in each of the five provinces, though office director Suwich Thampaolo reported that the fine-particle dust level in the five provinces had so far remained within safe limits. He said that cases of respiratory ailments had not yet risen; there were about 50-100 respiratory patients per day at each hospital, which was a normal rate.
The dense smoke and subsequent poor visibility in the lower Gulf of Thailand has left hundreds of Songkhla-based boats confined to port, where they are expected to remain for another one or two days while the smoke clears. The Songkhla Fishery Association said the halt to fishing hadn’t affected fish supplies to markets and factories in the area because of surpluses from the previous catch.
A source said the number of Sumatra forest fires had decreased from 202 outbreaks to 107, but the southwest monsoon covering the Andaman, Southern Thailand and the Gulf of Thailand remained strong, with breezes pushing smoke over lower Southern Thailand.
