Jakarta, Sept. 10 -- The Health Ministry has mobilized a massive medical response across seven provinces as severe forest and land fires pushed cumulative acute respiratory infection (ARI) cases past 113,000 as of September 9.

Speaking at a press conference at the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) headquarters in Jakarta, Health Ministry spokesperson Widyawati reported 113,336 ARI cases across 63 regencies and cities in South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Jambi, Riau, and South Sumatra.

"The ARI case reports are categorized by age group: 26,545 cases involved toddlers aged 0 to 5 years, while 86,791 cases occurred in the group aged over 5 years," Widyawati said, noting that the surge directly...