Thousands of citizens in Ahvaz visited hospitals after experiencing respiratory problems on Monday and Tuesday.

An Ahvaz Medical University official announced: “From 8:00 am on Monday to 8:00 am today, 4481 people have visited hospitals due to respiratory problems after the rain.”

According to this official, 4321 of these patients were treated immediately and 160 were hospitalized.

The issue of respiratory problems after the rain in Khuzestan province in the southwest of Iran started in 2013, and until 2015, over 60 thousand people visited hospitals for suffering from breathing problems.

The number of cases dropped in 2016, but since then each year hundreds of citizens in Khuzestan visit hospitals after the first Autumn rain.

No health official or institution has provided a specific answer for the cause of this phenomenon. In one of the researched done in Khuzestan province, 18 factors were examined as the potential causes of these breathing problems and in the end, “oil well torches, burning the sugarcane farms, burning garbage, and the spores of Conocarpus plant were identified as the possible causes of this phenomenon.

Khuzestan Medical University has underlined the Conocarpus spores as one of the main causes of this complication.

Khuzestan province has long been in a battle with air pollutants including dust and smug. The problem at times has forced whole cities to shut down.

An official at Khuzestan governor’s office said on Monday that ecologically, the province has become a dangerous area.