 All right, welcome back. It is still the breakfast and plus TV Africa. This time around, we are focusing on health. Just yesterday, the world celebrated, or marked, the World Malaria Day, and there are concerns. Now, experts say malaria killed more than 200,000 Nigerians and afflicted 61 million others in 2021. And the country is said to have lost over $1.1 billion. However, the hope of venting malaria disease that kills thousands of people annually received the boost in late 2021 when the World Health Organization approved the use of the first ever malaria vaccine. Now, the vaccine RTS-DADES or Moschorus, it's not just the force for malaria, but also the force developed for any parasitic disease. Now, parasites are much more complex than viruses or bacteria. And the quest for malaria vaccine had been underway for many years. This vaccine was found to surpass the 75% efficacy goal set by the WHO for malaria vaccine to receive a nut. Now, health experts, caregivers, and government officials describe the development as a breakthrough in the fight against this coach that has plagued humans for decades. Now, malaria, which is preventable and treatable, continues to have a devastating impact on the health and livelihood of people around the world. We have Dr. Tui Mabawulu, a public health practitioner, joining us on this particular conversation. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Mabawulu. Tui, just in front of you. Yes, it is a pleasure. Dr, it is very alarming when we see statistics and figures like that. Just yesterday, when the world was commemorating the World Minority, figures just wrote that. And from what we hear, 200,000 deaths in Nigeria. How did we get to this? One would have thought that with all of the advocacy, with all of the money and funds being pumped into malaria, that we should have actually been able to bring it on that to some extent. So what's going on, really? It is a shameful repeat that as much as 30, 70% of all malaria cases and death are caught in Nigeria. If 95% of malaria cases worldwide occur in four African countries, Nigeria, Dier, Congo, Tanzania, and Mozambique. Not this way. So for all the deaths in the world, as much as 25% of them, that is for every one out of four deaths of malaria worldwide, is seen in Nigeria. And of course, you listed out the numbers and then the costs for us. And here we are. We have small countries like Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, and the QT malaria. And we're still here trying to battle how to deal with malaria. One, first and foremost, we have not put sufficient funds and policy initiatives to drive malaria back. Let's think about it. We have a very weak health. All right. We're seem to be having some connectivity issue with Dr. T. Mirbawondo. We'll try and reconnect him on the shows. Okay. All right, let's talk about malaria. It's one illness that has actually plagued a whole lot of Nigerians. And over time, it seems to have actually been misdiagnosed. A lot of people, when they have a little as headaches or fevers, they tell you that they get malaria even without getting the right checks or tests done. And they just go about time prescribing several drugs for themselves. But let's get Dr. T. Mirbawondo back. I guess he has joined us yet again. Dr. Mirbawondo, thanks for staying with us. Yeah, thank you. I was just explaining that it is shameful that Nigeria contributes as much as one of four deaths of malaria worldwide. And more importantly, more shameful is the fact that 95% of cases of malaria worldwide is from about four African countries, Nigeria, Congo, Tanzania, and Mozambique. So why did we get to this point? One, as usual, we have a few-flop policy to address critical health challenges. In small countries like Uzbekistan, you know, Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka, Europe, Paraguay can actually eradicate malaria. I mean, reducing the transmission of malaria to zero. What's our problem? Well, first of all, most I've mentioned clearly that there's a policy challenge. Our health situation is very weak, very, very weak. That's a weak health system. Then we have financial challenge, you know, and then human resources challenge. Now, if you look at the pillars to really eradicate malaria, turn malaria to zero, we're not doing much. And COVID came, took our time. And a lot of us are slump dwellers, poor water supplies, sanitation challenge. All this is actually the fact that to deal with malaria has become difficult. And it's also, we're losing a lot of children, especially on the five, are pregnant women. All right, so, but what sort of innovation do you think we need to embrace to talk about reduction of malaria deaths and saving lives at this point? I mean, looking at the theme for, you know, this year. Yes. And that's an innovation to reduce the burden of malaria is apt because what that means is, the order is telling us essentially is that there's no one, there's no silver bullet to deal with the challenge of malaria. We have, you know, let's look at it. First and foremost, we need to do an environmental control and vector control. We need to drain our entire cotter of bushes and ensure that, you know, the vector that actually breathe by the mosquito is probably controlled. The indoor spray has to actually be raised up and we have to embrace sanitation and hygiene. That is key. The other thing is that we want to deploy a saturated net. It touches you with that all on the five are pregnant women, sleep on that net. The net has survived a lot of setback in distributions and penetrations anywhere in Nigeria. That's another issue. The third thing is about the drugs that you want to use to treat malaria. We're seeing a lot of resistance to also, well, do you think we're seeing combination therapy that we're used to? Have people just used them passively? In such a way that we're not having, if you count it, it actually treating malaria from the simple drug that we know, that is there. And then the drug is expensive, you know, because if you want to treat malaria, you're talking about $3,000 minimum if you have to purchase the drug outside. And then that $3,000 is a lot of money to some people when they have an episode of more than five, six, seven malaria per year or even sometimes, you know, one or two in a month. So, and then surveillance, we're not doing sufficient surveillance to look at that. Where are we? In fact, we're not pushing what I've called bold early auditions goal to drive malaria figure down in Nigeria. What we're seeing is, since we're seeing talk at control of malaria, at least try to figure out how malaria will not be a public health issue. It's not a public health issue. We will not move to that pre-elimination We've not really done those kind of boasters. Good enough, we have vaccines now. Vaccine is one of the tools that is available, especially for under five, where, you know, we have three doses and the fourth dose after some time, which can now be used to reduce the severity of malaria, especially pre-vascular, which is actually a consequence of the death. So, we have the vaccine. We have to actually step up our environmental and vector control. In the last spring, we have to raise the drug and diagnosis methodology because now for malaria is that most of them now, nobody even tried to do. I want to go off, tick-off him or all those things. So, we have to put all those instruments together if you want to get something from malaria, really reduce malaria episode. All right, Dr. Mibondu, last year, the world was celebrating when there was the talk of the RTS, and of course, one would have thought that that would have been the way forward, you know, vaccination, you know, for this particular illness. What's the situation, as we speak? Let's relate it, bring it down home. Are the vaccines available here, or what exactly is going on as regards to getting people vaccinated, you know, from malaria? Thinking about Nigeria, we're looking at the test process of this year to see whether we can get some of those vaccines and then deploy them. What is important is that, you see, we may have very efficacious product that is not efficient. If the vaccines work so well, don't forget, firstly, it can only work, it can only have the desired effect or become efficient when you can deploy the vaccine effectively. That means that you have a whole chain of things to think about bringing the vaccines, maintaining the cold chain or whatever case and then deploy the vaccines to the remote areas, give it to people that don't need it and dealing with challenges of vaccine assistance and all those stuff. So it involves a lot of things. It goes beyond just discovering the vaccine as in, okay, I have the vaccine that now works. But you have to make the vaccine work. Yes, the vaccine works, but you have to make the vaccine work. So, vaccine is one of the tools which can be competent to the expedient program of immunization and then can be deployed with, say, like polio vaccine, like measles vaccines and then taking down to the remote areas corner of Nigeria. But I will say that, not that it will cost money, it will cost human resources, it will cost proper planning to ensure that these vaccines get to where we want the vaccines to get to. So, and that is the thing. And when you look at Nigeria Booking Health System, 30,000 primary healthcare centers all over Nigeria, less than a system of them working, no funding, no human resources. And then, it's a mess, but we need to do more. We have to rely on our partners to provide money to provide training and human resources to deploy those vaccines. I hope that it's just another instrument that we're kitty to deal with this quality of malaria. We hope, I hope, we use it well. So, on this particular, I mean, it's a week for it. And so, what would be the call to all of the stakeholders, government inclusive, you know, the health sector as well, including individuals? Yes, actually look at, you see, we need to drive the community participation in our malaria eradication. What is a community? The community is not just one tiny village in a remote area of Ilela or in a remote area of Lagos. A community means that church, mosque, religious institution, faith-based organizations, NGOs, CSOs, we need to really use that in case to drive down the proper campaign against malaria and appropriate use of even anti-malaria. Now imagine, in one of the, during this period now, during the period of fasting and even instead of just ended, and during one of the summons or exhortation for the people, it passed also the amount that starts speaking about the beauty of sleeping on the aesthetic net and just putting it, using their own influence to drive the campaign against malaria. That would be nice. We need to find a way to act locally. We need to increase the education. We cannot just reduce malaria campaign to 25th of April every day. And then when the time, when malaria bites somebody, it's killing people. It's shameful that one out of four deaths in the whole world, in the whole wide world from malaria and adherents. It's very shameful. And we need to do something about it, but it remains to be seen. What exactly can we do right? What exactly can we do right? Maybe this will be, it's going to be an exception. All right, I'm Dr. T, member Wander. Thank you for all the thoughts that you have shared on malaria and the enlightenment and of course advocacy and what we need to be doing and to save ourselves from this embarrassment like you have called it. So that when agents don't have to start treating malaria almost twice every other month. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. All right, that's on the sides of the show for today. We must say a very big thank you to all of you who have sat back to watch. And of course, I trust you have been able to learn one or two things as regards what we need to do concerning malaria because it is an ever-present issue, almost something that everyone can relate with. The show returns again tomorrow. My name is Justin Akadomi. And I am Merciable for it. And if you missed that on any part of the conversation, that's all right, to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You subscribe to YouTube channel as a class TV Africa and class TV Africa lives down. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.