THE Health Ministry has not seen a spike in cases of illnesses directly linked to the transboundary smoke from Indonesia’s forest fires, Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.

Conjunctivitis, asthma and upper respiratory tract infection are the three main illnesses the ministry’s sentinel clinics have been looking out for in the past four weeks.

“The ministry is monitoring diseases related to the haze at selected sentinel clinics. The three diseases are conjunctivitis, asthma and upper respiratory tract infection.”

“Since the beginning of the haze, the ministry has watched out for these three diseases and there has been no abnormal increase in the numbers of such cases,” Dr Noor Hisham said today in a statement to The Malaysian Insight.

Meanwhile, 409 schools in Sarawak were closed today due to air pollution, affecting 157,479 pupils in 62 secondary schools and 347 primary schools.

The state Education Department will decide whether the closure will continue tomorrow based on the API readings at 6pm today.

The Meteorological Department expects the current unhealthy air conditions to last for the next few days, while the risk of continued haze is present until the end of the month, when the monsoon season brings rain and winds.

The Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre also said wind is expected to blow dense smoke from the hotspots in South, Central and West Kalimantan in the Indonesian territory of the Borneo Island to western Sarawak and the adjacent South China Sea area. 

The air quality in several places worsened today from yesterday.

Malaysia has offered to help Indonesia put out its forest fires. – September 10, 2019.