The Saint Lucia Meteorological Services has urged caution amid reduced air quality due to Saharan dust.
The agency has advised people with dust allergies and respiratory ailments to take precautionary measures.
According to the Met Office, a large plume of Saharan dust will continue to cause a reduction in air quality and visibility across the region during the next few days.
“This is more of a health issue,” Meteorological Services Director Andre Joyeux told St. Lucia Times.
Joyeux suggested that individuals could wear masks to protect themselves from the dust.
He also urged allergy-prone individuals to have whatever medication they take on hand.
“The Saharan dust is going to be around for a while. Normally, after every tropical wave we get an influx,” Joyeux explained.
In addition, he said tropical waves normally wash away the dust.
“But to the back of the wave would have more dust,” the Meteorological Services Director disclosed.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has noted that Saharan dust can harm health.
According to the CDC, once people breathe them in, the particles can enter the lungs and bloodstream, potentially triggering asthma attacks in people with asthma and aggravating other respiratory conditions.
The CDC also observed that larger particles from Saharan dust can irritate the skin and eyes.
Children, babies, older adults, people with underlying lung conditions, and people with chronic cardiopulmonary diseases are most at risk.
In addition to the caution regarding Saharan dust, the Saint Lucia Met Office said Tuesday that a tropical wave over the western Tropical Atlantic is moving westward near 21 mph or 33 km/h.
It will cause some cloudy periods with showers and possibly isolated thunderstorms over the southern half of the Lesser Antilles.
Another tropical wave with a low chance of cyclone formation in the next seven days is over the far eastern Tropical Atlantic, moving westward near 12 mph or 19 km/h.
this is not the only reduced quality we getting uh. We getting less quality at the banks, you have to stay on a line for hours with only four or three tellers to serve you wasting your time, supervisors and managers turning a blind eye to the situation and unless customers start getting unruly they wont bring in more tellers. We getting reduced quality at the land registry, it takes almost an entire day if not more to get a copy of your land documents, they change the old staff and put some new ones there that always on their bloody phones and dont know nothing about the work slowing the process even more. Mr Stephenson King needs to take a look into this mess. Even our Government giving us less quality performance and nothing but empty promises