Data From The Ministry Of Health, 200 Thousand People Affected By Respiratory Diseases Due To Air Pollution In Jakarta

Illustration. Patients with respiratory disturbances due to exposure to smoke fog are being treated at the Oxygen House ofturbation and Culture, Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, Wednesday, September 18, 2019. (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Health Minister Budi Gunadi said 200 thousand people in Jakarta were exposed to respiratory diseases due to air pollution. He also encouraged the upstream sectors to have an energy sector, transportation, the environmental sector to reduce their emission pressure. "Especially in Jakarta, we saw that before the 50.000 Covid-19 were affected (respiratory diseases). Now it has gone up to 200,000 people," said Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi at the Grand Hotel, South Jakarta, Thursday, August 24. Budi Gunadi said respiratory diseases that infected all of them, namely tuberculosis, lung cancer, asthma, pneumonia, and chronic construction lung disease. The increase in the disease was higher than during the previous Covid-19. "So there are 5 types starting with the most severe lung cancer, tuberculosis, some chronic construction lungs, pneumonia is 5 types caused by respiratory disease," he added. As Covid-19, the increase in the fifth graph of the disease was around 50,000. This has soared due to air pollution in Jakarta.

"Well, there is a result of this air pollution, only for us on our health side it moves downstream, not upstream," he said. He said, his party or other health workers can only treat it without being able to prevent prevent preventiveness to the community. This is because the cause of the disease number is due to air pollution. "Only can handle the consequences or the disease that arises only. For the prevention factor the health minister cannot," he said. Because the people infected with this respiratory disease are known to be higher than before. When asked about the exact figure of the total claims, he has not been able to say further. "For information, these 5 respiratory diseases, the total claims in BPJS will definitely be included this year. It will increase," he said. Minister of Health said optimistic that the government can handle the problem. The current condition, according to him, is not the first to occur in Indonesia and many countries have succeeded in overcoming this pollution. So, he hopes that Indonesia can imitate and also implement solutions applied by other countries.

"Secondly what I want to convey that I still give optimism is things like this, air pollution, has happened in our country and can be controlled," he said. "The best and the fastest I see in China when there is Beijing Olympics, they take several steps to ensure that the sky is blue, right now it's proven to go down quickly, so what makes us optimistic if this can be handled," he concluded.