There was an in­crease in the num­ber of peo­ple com­plain­ing about res­pi­ra­to­ry is­sues when they vis­it­ed the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency (A&E) de­part­ment and clin­ics in the North Cen­tral re­gion as a re­sult of the Sa­ha­ran Air lay­er (SAL) or Sa­ha­ran dust.

This was con­firmed by chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) Davlin Thomas yes­ter­day.

It came af­ter the T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vices re­port­ed a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in Sa­ha­ran dust, which is cur­rent­ly af­fect­ing the qual­i­ty of the air in both Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Sa­ha­ran dust is a warm, dry and dust-laden lay­er of air that orig­i­nates over the Sa­hara desert of North Africa and ex­tends from the earth’s sur­face up­wards sev­er­al kilo­me­tres.

Ac­cord­ing to the Met Of­fice, it has been linked to in­creased emer­gency de­part­ment vis­its for asth­ma, res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tions and chron­ic ob­struc­tive pul­monary dis­ease (COPD).

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, an of­fi­cial from the Met Ser­vice said the Sa­ha­ran dust was very con­cen­trat­ed yes­ter­day and that’s why in most ar­eas across Trinidad, it was very dull and grey.

A very high con­cen­tra­tion of Sa­ha­ran dust was re­port­ed in ar­eas such as Port-of-Spain, Bel­mont, Mt Hope, Tacarigua and San Fer­nan­do.

Sen­si­tive groups, in­clud­ing old­er adults, chil­dren and peo­ple with res­pi­ra­to­ry ail­ments and al­ler­gies were al­so cau­tioned about the in­creas­ing like­li­hood of res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms.

Sev­er­al schools, both pub­lic and pri­ma­ry, al­so is­sued ad­vi­sories to par­ents and guardians about the ef­fects of Sa­ha­ran dust. School of­fi­cials in What­sApp mes­sages urged par­ents and guardians to keep their chil­dren at home/ in­doors if they fell in­to the vul­ner­a­ble cat­e­gories. They al­so ad­vised that if the chil­dren at­tend­ed class­es, care­givers were to en­sure the rel­e­vant med­ica­tion was sent in the event of a med­ical emer­gency.

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed sev­er­al med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers, we were told that many peo­ple com­plained about the dust. They said the pa­tients were seen and treat­ed es­pe­cial­ly those with si­nus, asth­ma, al­ler­gies and those with or re­cov­er­ing from the flu.

In down­town Port-of-Spain, some peo­ple al­so said they were feel­ing the ef­fects of the con­cen­tra­tion of Sa­ha­ran dust but stopped short of seek­ing med­ical care.

One per­son said, “It does af­fect me very bad be­cause I have to get med­ica­tion and it’s very dif­fi­cult to breathe.”

An­oth­er said, “I suf­fer with si­nus so that’s why I have to wear my masks all day with this Sa­ha­ran dust. It re­al­ly bad this week.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­ingh were fu­tile yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, some med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers said the same health pro­to­cols be­ing ad­ver­tised by the Health Min­istry in­clud­ing wear­ing a mask and wash­ing hands should al­so be fol­lowed to pro­tect against Sa­ha­ran dust.