The Eastern Province has been under a thick blanket of dust for the last three days, sending more than 1,000 people with asthma and dust allergies to hospitals and clinics and disrupting air and on ground traffic. “Supply of asthma medication has been increased by 45 percent in the region,” said Morbih Assiri, assistant director of the Health Department in the Eastern Province. Hospitals across the region have been instructed to keep their pharmacies stacked with different types of asthma medicines, he added. According to a recent study carried out by the Ministry of Health, the Kingdom has more than 2,000,000 people affected by asthma. The Eastern Province shares only 10 percent of the total people affected by asthma in the Kingdom. Taif tops the list with 23 percent, the study found. Flights originating or arriving at King Fahd International Airport (KFIA) were rescheduled, said Khaled Al-Muzael, director of KFIA. Flights at Hail Airport were not affected by the dust storm, but people with asthma kept rushing to hospitals and clinics throughout the city. Current dust storms have been caused by strong winds from the Mediterranean blowing over loose soil and sand in the Levant and Iraq and picking up so much of that material downward the Eastern Province, said meteorologist Jabr Al-Dossari. The current dust storm will subside within the coming three days but other dust storms will become more frequent until the end of June because the strong heating of the air over the desert causes the lower atmosphere to become unstable, he said. – Okaz, (Mufid Al-Muhana from Hail contributed to the story) __
