Trinidad and To­ba­go is set to ex­pe­ri­ence a dusty Car­ni­val this year, as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice is fore­cast­ing Sa­ha­ran dust at mod­er­ate to high lev­els from to­mor­row.

Based on da­ta from the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty, which has had an am­bi­ent air qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion at Beetham, Port-of-Spain, since 2015, this will not be the first year T&T will be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing de­creased air qual­i­ty for Car­ni­val.

For Car­ni­val 2020, mod­er­ate air qual­i­ty al­so pre­vailed in Port-of-Spain and oth­er mon­i­tor­ing sites na­tion­wide.

How­ev­er, even at a mod­er­ate lev­el event, sen­si­tive groups such as chil­dren, old­er adults and those with res­pi­ra­to­ry ail­ments are the most af­fect­ed.

Dr Marisa Nim­rod, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of M.D. Med­ical Con­sul­tan­cy Ltd, yes­ter­day said de­pend­ing on the air qual­i­ty in­dex, peo­ple may ex­hib­it a myr­i­ad of symp­toms. She said the most com­mon ef­fects in­clude itchy, wa­tery eyes, al­ler­gic rhini­tis, run­ny nose, dry cough, sore throat, nasal con­ges­tion, and even fa­tigue, de­pend­ing on ex­po­sure.

“If the lev­els are high in the par­tic­u­lar risk group, we’re talk­ing about per­sons who might have pre-ex­ist­ing con­di­tions, so we’re look­ing at who might be asth­mat­ic pa­tients who have pre-ex­ist­ing lung con­di­tions, COPD or chron­ic ob­struc­tive pul­monary dis­ease, or some­times if per­sons with oth­er co­mor­bidi­ties, as we say oth­er med­ical con­di­tions who might have heart prob­lems, etc will al­so be af­fect­ed.”

Dr Shiv­ana Per­sad, Oph­thal­mol­o­gist at the North-Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty and St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal, said the dust can al­so have a no­table im­pact on peo­ple’s eyes. She said peo­ple should look out for a grit­ty feel­ing or sen­sa­tion of grav­el in the eye; red­ness and swelling of your eye­lids; burn­ing itch­ing wa­tery eyes; and hazy or cloudy vi­sion be­cause of the amount of dust in the at­mos­phere.

“Peo­ple who have cer­tain eye con­di­tions such as al­ler­gic eye dis­ease may no­tice a wors­en­ing of symp­toms and peo­ple who might have what is known as ptery­gium or the fleshy growth over the sur­face of the eye may no­tice that it be­comes a lit­tle bit more ir­ri­tat­ed and red and in­flamed dur­ing this time,” she said.

With nu­mer­ous Car­ni­val events slat­ed to oc­cur this week­end, near­ly all of them out­doors and fre­quent­ed by the most im­pact­ed pop­u­la­tion, many are be­ing ad­vised to take all nec­es­sary steps to pro­tect them­selves from the im­pact of dust.

Dr Nim­rod said wear­ing a mask will be the chief de­fence against the dust, and for asth­mat­ics, keep­ing your res­cue in­haler with you on the road will be im­por­tant.

She said salt­wa­ter, saline wash­es and nasal sprays may be need­ed, or even steroid nasal sprays for those with pre-ex­ist­ing res­pi­ra­to­ry con­di­tions. She added that us­ing ar­ti­fi­cial teardrops or lu­bri­cat­ing drops will al­so be ben­e­fi­cial.

For those on the road, Dr Per­sad ad­vised, “Eas­i­ly prone or af­fect­ed peo­ple should pro­tect the eyes by wrap­around gog­gles or gog­gles that are well fit­ting, or the con­tin­ued use of your glass­es or sun­glass­es out­doors.”

For the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, Dr Nim­rod cau­tioned, “If the symp­toms are still go­ing on two days or three days and you de­vel­op a fever, still hav­ing a sore throat, be­cause we still have oth­er virus­es around in­clud­ing COVID-19, you may want to go in and still get test­ed in case so we can man­age or treat with that or any oth­er vi­ral symp­to­mol­o­gy.”