Per­sons with a height­ened sen­si­tive re­sponse to Sa­ha­ran dust who are lo­cat­ed in San Fer­nan­do in Trinidad, and in To­ba­go are be­ing urged to ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion to­day, as the Air Qual­i­ty In­dices record­ed from those mon­i­tor­ing sta­tions are quite high.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) is ad­vis­ing there is a thick con­cen­tra­tion of Sa­ha­ran dust present in the at­mos­phere.

“A de­crease in air qual­i­ty is ex­pect­ed so per­sons who are sen­si­tive to this change should take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions,” the Met Ser­vice stat­ed.

The air qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing sta­tions of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) have record­ed an Air Qual­i­ty In­dex (AQI) of 104 for San Fer­nan­do, and of 133 for To­ba­go—which is des­ig­nat­ed SEN­SI­TIVE GROUPS. The read­ing was tak­en at noon, to­day.

The EMA’s AQI alert sys­tem in­di­cates that for peo­ple in San Fer­nan­do and To­ba­go there is in­creas­ing like­li­hood of res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms in sen­si­tive groups, in­clud­ing old­er adults, chil­dren, and peo­ple with res­pi­ra­to­ry ail­ments and al­ler­gies.  It al­so notes the re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty of ag­gra­va­tion of heart or lung dis­ease and pre­ma­ture mor­tal­i­ty in peo­ple with heart or lung dis­ease.

As such, peo­ple with heart or lung dis­ease, old­er adults, chil­dren, and peo­ple with res­pi­ra­to­ry ail­ments and al­ler­gies are be­ing ad­vised to re­duce pro­longed or heavy ex­er­tion.

AQI update courtesy Environmental Management Authority (EMA).

In the past, the Min­istry of Health has ad­vised per­sons who al­ready have lung con­di­tions, like asth­ma, to stay in­doors, when pos­si­ble, and have their res­cue in­haler with them at all times.  It is ad­vice which should be heed­ed by such per­sons in To­ba­go and San Fer­nan­do, to­day.

Mean­while, the mon­i­tor­ing sta­tions at Point Lisas and Port of Spain both are in­di­cat­ing MOD­ER­ATE air qual­i­ty in­dices.

As at noon to­day, Point Lisas reg­is­tered an AQI of 73, while the read­ing at Port of Spain was 89.

At these lev­els, res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms are pos­si­ble in un­usu­al­ly sen­si­tive in­di­vid­u­als.  In ad­di­tion, there could be pos­si­ble ag­gra­va­tion of heart or lung dis­ease in peo­ple with car­diopul­monary dis­ease and old­er adults.  Un­usu­al­ly sen­si­tive peo­ple should con­sid­er re­duc­ing pro­longed or heavy ex­er­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the Met Ser­vice fore­cast, there is lit­tle re­lief to be had.

“Main­ly dull and hazy con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed to­day, de­spite the odd show­er. Ex­pect a hazy night with a light breeze,” Met Ser­vice fore­cast­ers pre­dict.

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About the Air Qual­i­ty In­dex (AQI)

The Air Qual­i­ty In­dex is a num­ber used by gov­ern­ment agen­cies to com­mu­ni­cate to the pub­lic how pol­lut­ed the air cur­rent­ly is or how pol­lut­ed it is fore­cast to be­come. As the AQI in­creas­es, an in­creas­ing­ly large per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion is like­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence in­creas­ing­ly se­vere ad­verse health ef­fects.