 Welcome back. The world marked Malaria Day yesterday with the theme reaching the zero malaria target. It comes as scientists from Oxford University say a vaccine they developed has proven highly effective in a trial in babies in Africa. They also say the vaccine was 77% effective in the year-long trial of 450 children in Bukina Faso. Coming back home, Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of global malaria cases, as well as the highest number of deaths. And this morning we're joined by Dr. Ronaoud Iqbe to share on what Malaria Day and of course efforts that need to be taken here in Nigeria and across the world to read our continent of malaria if possible. Good morning Dr. Ronaoud. Good morning. Thanks for joining us. I want us to start with some positivity this morning so let's quickly share or get you to share with us some of the good things that we may have achieved in the last long while in the last couple of years in the fight against malaria. The positives? Yes, absolutely. Okay, so malaria as we know is linked to Nigeria and Africa and it's been an age-long battle so far but despite that we've been making gains you know there's been increasing the use of insecticide death meds from about 2% in 2000 to about 55% in the year 2015 which is good. So that means there's been a little drop in the incidence of malaria despite the fact that it's still one of the greatest out there in Africa so and also interventions like fitment testing also been stable though so I think we're making some progress but there's still a lot of work to be doing. Really Dr. Ronaoud Iqbe despite this progress we know that Nigeria has you know is the country with one of the highest you know malaria deaths and incidences in the country and this statistics is even you know more grim in you know the rural communities so how can we take the anti-malaria fights to the rural communities to make sure that they're carried along with all the successes they were recording you know in the fight against malaria? Well I think a lot of advocacy needs to be done. First for malaria control there are a lot of things that need to be done. Firstly we talk about vector control that's the mosquito itself it has to be controlled. Now typically around those our environment is dirty, the gutters are clogged up, they are not moving, a lot of stagland water, bushes around us all of that. So those are the first things we need to do get rid of the breeding sites for these mosquitoes. Discharge tracks properly, clean the gutters regularly. I was even discussing with someone yesterday that back then we used to do this such this and it is thrown out there which was a regular thing but now it's it's no longer the norm you know our gutters are all clogged up and stagland, mosquitoes are being left right at the center. So these are the things we need to bring back. We need to be more responsible and proactive towards keeping the environment clean. Then secondly you need to get tested and treated. So not everything is malaria really. Everybody has a slight headache. I have malaria and you go and pop the pills because part of the problem now is resistance to some of the routine anti-malaria because a lot of people are abusing those medications. So these are some of the messages we need to scale up out there. Yes Mr Iqbe, talking about that you know drug resistance to anti-malaria and also fake medicines. How's Nigeria dealing with these challenges? Well it's a tough one really where for instance we really don't have tight regulations as to who gets drugs and to where you can walk into a pharmacy or chemists or roadside market and buy whatever drug you want to buy simply because I think you have malaria. So these are some issues right. So we need tighter regulations as to how these drugs are accessible to everyone out there. All right that's you know like you mentioned there's a lot of work that also needs to be done that would help the fight if our environment continues to allow mosquitoes to breed and to increase in numbers then you know we may never win this fight. So we have a long way to go and when you mention gotters I'm looking you know even on Lagos Island the all of Lecky Phase 1 Victor Island there's a lot of these gotters that Saturday environmental sanitation would not solve. There's a lot being infrastructure deficit really is a huge problem. So I hope we'll get back to that before we end the program. Let's talk about the vaccine trials that have started in certain countries in Africa, Kenya, Ghana and I'm not sure what the last one is. How well is that going? Is that good news and do you think that those vaccines will eventually get to Nigeria? Well it's good news because so far we've not been able to eradicate it through the normal testing and treating and like you mentioned have a long way to go. So if the vaccines are available I think that might scale up our efforts toward eradication. So so far they've said they have about 70% efficacy on the current trials doing right now which is actually very good and I think there's also a first trial somewhere sometimes once yes with the RTS vaccine and there's a first three being planned across four African countries. So it's a good step really so I think it's something we should be happy about. All right Dr. Ronald Ipe, thank you very much for your time and thoughts on the breakfast this morning. All right, we'll be taking a break here to share some good news. We just shared some regarding the malaria vaccine and this one is about Nigerian students who are doing great in Diaspora. Stay with us.