A very significant case particularly because. For his prodemocracy activities but hes also a huge tycoon here in hong kong for his rags to riches story hes worth an estimated worth of. Media companies. Companies so he is a big fish when it comes to hong kongs democracy. And his profile here in the city Indian Farmers amazing government ministers for a 2nd round of talks as protests against you are great cultural wars intensify farmers worry that the new laws will end minimum crop prices and lead to corporate exploitation. U. S. Media is reporting that saudi arabia is close to reopening its airspace and land border to counsel has been under a land and sea and air blockade by saudi arabia bahrain the u. A. E. And egypt since june 27th Team President trump Senior AdviserJared Kirshner was in concert on wednesday of his reported to have also visited saudi arabia President Trump has given a 46 minutes each on social media repeating his unfounded allegations of electrum Election Fraud facebook and twitter based warnings on the video statement israels Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu is hitting out at efforts to dissolve parliament and trigger another election the motion was supported by his Main Coalition alternate Prime Minister benny gantz the relationship between the 2 leaders has deteriorated during the coronavirus pandemic irans top council has approved a lol that would allow for higher levels of uranium enrichment the law still needs to be approved by president Hassan Rouhani thats it youre up to date small you see here. Todays inside story next d. Held for over 3 years in an egyptian prison cell deny the right to a fair trial no charges have been brought against al jazeera correspondent mark ne jame saying his crime journalism. To demand truth thinks and boy solidarity told to take journalists sign the petition. The free hussein. Coronavirus all malaria tuberculosis and h. I. V. The u. N. Warns the fight against one is threatening efforts made to control the others what is the pandemic done to the decades long efforts to control these disease this is inside story. Hello welcome to the program and byrne its more than 7000000 lives have been saved from malaria in the past 2 decades but progress in fighting the disease has been hindered as efforts are diverted to the coronavirus pandemic the World Health Organization expects the target for reducing malaria cases to be missed by almost 40 percent this year funding shortfalls and disruptions to treatments putting thousands of lives at risk only 3000000000. 00 was received last year when more than 5000000000 was needed interventions a simple as using nets and residual spraying can help prevent the mosquito Borne Disease w. H. O. Is urging nations to step up their efforts for a world free of malaria w. H. O. Says 229000000 people were infected by the lair in 29000 the estimated figure remained virtually unchanged over the past 4 years last year more than 400000 people died from the disease africa accounted for more than 90 percent of all global cases and deaths half of them were in nigeria democratic republic of congo tanzania mozambique and akina fasten the continent has significantly reduced the death rate since 2000 but that was slowed in recent years while india is among the major contributors to malaria the nation has been making progress in eliminating the disease. And the impact of corona virus is also affecting the fight against other diseases and addition to malaria tuberculosis and hiv programs also reported about 80 percent of disruption Services Tuberculosis diagnoses for example a drop by nearly 75 percent in india since the pandemic began while one in 4 people suffering with hiv reported problems gaining access to medications. Lets now bring in our guests joining us from nairobi is jeremy heron hes a scientist at the International Center of insect physiology and ecology in brussels martin the smatter physician and leader of the Doctors Without BordersMalaria Working Group out in Kuala Lumpur John fleming the asia pacific head of the Regional Health unit of the International Federation of red cross and red crescent societies welcome to you all john ill start with you the red cross is the Worlds Largest humanitarian network or have you had to divert resources from things like malaria tb and a job to deal with cove it absolutely no. Really all it is that its operation. Ration the International Federation also. Gauged and we for instance in the Asia Pacific Region we had 38 National Red Cross presence. And every one of those 38. 00. Are engaged in. What works allocation activities in respect of all we also activities or so little. Anomic programs. So there isnt much a major priority or. Jeremy when you hear about resources being diverted what does it tell you are going to be the challenges in trying to bring down the cases of malaria there was this ambitious strategy set up by the global tech technical strategy from the w. H. O. To bring cases down to 19 down by 90 percent by 2030 already it suggests theyre way off beam whats going wrong yeah well i think theres really a lack of investment in that that was pointed out in in the reports where lives were not really on track to meet the goals and unfortunately with the events of the last year i think investments will probably take another hit. So we werent on the right track with investments before. And i think its really its going to be really unfortunate one of resources are diverted towards kervyn which is important but there is a risk that people start to forget about malaria which is really an incredibly important. Motson were those g. T. S. The Global Technical strategy targets to. I think its good that the targets are and remain bishops but indeed the reality is that we were not able to meet story gets for a number of reasons as mentioned already before. Not only due to coverage but even before debt 400000 people dying every year you cannot cold not of course being on track for a number of reasons that were present before cough it and received that lack of progress mainly in countries conflict countries all stable countries post conflict countries also a number of and environmental events that unfortunately continue to increase extreme events vance flooding leading to more and more malaria technical problems linked to Insecticide Resistance for example so theres a number of reasons why it has been in detroit very difficult to reach the targets but we still have to do a maximum of bit mobilization to come as close as possible. Of health care are being affected by the concentration on fighting covert 19. I mean according to the v. A. So you. May have night or. Day on that. Early. Or many many other. Really overstretched. Ready. Very emotionally strike or will now be on. Stretched beyond their feet and again you know a lack of the best in the some of the only mention it and other really important areas on it and were looking at again disasters that have been mentioned so it is thanks a 2nd. Boat to our population mike rooms operations one day and they dont mean threats. Nomic challenges meant social. Challenges. Are in the eyes. Jeremy more than half the malaria and demick countries have reported disruptions to malaria diagnosis and treatment what are the consequences of that if youre not diagnosing it earlier on what chain of events of that creates. Its a disease that you know operates very quickly so. If people are not getting diagnosed in a timely manner getting medication. The rate of mortality is going to increase very significantly and i think we have seen that these here. The levels are definitely going up its hard to say exactly by how much and the worst may be still to come because i think a lot of the Economic Impacts of the pandemic are still coming and i think that will have a major effects in Subsaharan Africa where of course as you mentioned malaria its easy is the worst martin have the Doctors Without Borders teams have been reporting delays in diagnosing malaria what are their concerns. Well we are of course also observing delays and to places where we work. Very often linked to the whole or just tickle implication of. Travel restrictions drugs diagnostics but thats that can just be shipped. But. I would like to say that are also some positive aspects because the beginning we all understood that this was going to be a major major challenge with very high risk of exploding malaria deaths and fortunately there has been new huge mobilization among the Different Actors to invest as much as possible and prevention and in fact this was quite successful thanks to that. Just one example there is a nice strategy that protects no children from. Prevention the children do receive and thats millions and millions of children receive antimalarial drugs during the transmission season on a monthly basis we were all afraid that this would completely collapse. Because of the coverts the logistical challenges the Movement Restrictions but thanks to huge huge mobilization National Control programs World Health Organization n. G. O. S unicef to our own surprise in fact all these interventions dits take place and the countries as they were planned basically with only some minor disruptions a lot of the bed nets distribution. Take place so i think there was a shift do we really have to invest in the prevention of still the opportunity the window of opportunity between drug Movement Restrictions and i think this really was helpful to. Do to reduce the impact. Of the culture it on the other hand we do see and its no a daily struggle indeed to make sure that there are sufficient drugs and diagnostic tools all groaned. And his ranges from an deets manufacturing issues the reality is that were very happy there are today good tests to test profits but its basically the same production lines in the saying companies producing malaria tests so its a daily struggle to make sure that we still have sufficient malaria dusts the whole are just tickle challenge to bring the drugs over darron done in many countries the impact on dont struggle restrictions people cant get to the health centrists sometimes so we have surf very worrying and concerning developments and at the same time we see and courage ng dynamics as i mentioned true thats strong mobilization very close follow up the different agencies looking to get or how we can swiftly react to didnt eat so thats a bit sour of servatius john while there is good positive news from martin that he mentions i know the diagnostic tests now these rapid diagnostic tests they make profit of about 0. 18 a test i understand the money factor as well as the krona virus is much more lucrative the test is 10. 00 ago theres a red cross see problems in getting these tests produced and distributed and provided because a capacity is being switched to coronavirus testing. You know we our main role frankly in bolton the virus in all areas created 4 or terraces think every now and then maybe some national sightings to. Be she may say comparative advantage. So to play station generated in threats thats seen or introduced or since demand creation in the state or a bad treatment for testing so a lot of our. Work is at the Community Level its based its based on our coverage through the branches and forced to well a lot of its base from advocacy. Management social mobilization and also as they indicate engage in solution gage so from the task in point of view clearly its of interest to us than in many cases id say National Societies may get involved in testing of the most part are our area is working with governments of course in with the agencies that only its 1000. 00 a year but its utilizing or comparative advantage over. Germany can you just help us understand what the new formulations of artemisinin combined therapy the improvements have then have made in have made for the treatment of malaria and these introduction of these rapid diagnostic tests what is difference are they making. Well a huge huge difference i mean the bell ability they see teases really made made it possible to treat people across africa and the world the treatments are cheap and effective. And so far have had a relatively minimal amount of resistance from the side of the. Its been very very effective way of controlling the disease. There is you know a cautionary note that it will not last forever resistance always involves and thats why you know research and development is incredibly important suddenly have the next line of drugs available when when this instance opponents as it most definitely will so we really cant rest on the sort this 1. 1 we have is working at the moment thats great but weve got to live to the future as well but jeremy off people getting reliable access to those drugs at the moment because of course resistant resistance builds doesnt it if people dont use the drug regularly another gotz in treatment yeah well i think a lot of that has. This year but even in other years there were challenges in getting access to you know even some of the most remote the most remote places in in Subsaharan Africa so i would say that you know theres been a lot of effort and a lot of improvement but were still not not there yet and the challenge of this year its a little bit hard to say exactly how much effect its had and in course in Different Countries in africa that have been affected more or less by coronaviruses the levels of. Blockage in the sort of supply chains is different but what we know is that there has been and the fact and that is unfortunate martin have you if your teams report at the affair of people going to clinics because theyre going to contract coronavirus have you been able to account of that. Yes we did observe for people accessing the Health Center fortunately there is indeed as was already mentioned quite some investment in Community Based treatment. People can get treatment for the basic disease including malaria village but it served a fear on different levels. The patient was afraid to attend the Health Center sometimes the health staff is afraid of going to work because theyre afraid especially in the beginning when there wasnt enough personal protective equipment available that stuff was afraid to go to the Health Center on top of that there were any number of african countries strict rules all movements also reducing this access at the same time we were also fearing that the same factor which for disparate devotees for example attending a better distribution attending vaccination. For measles for example and so we are really and i think all the actress really invested a lot and. Explaining clearly to the people that the risk was truly because the ways were organized in a safe way and at the same time also thanks to the World Health Organization butts together with all the partners there was very clear guidance issued on how can you deal with for example a better distribution of context how can you reorganize your circuits in a clinic in a context of. Transmission going so theres a problem but fortunately with Good Health Promotion good guidance on how to adapt reassuring i think this does is less disrupt. If we feel and the beginning but no one can tell whats going to to be in the future of course. Because general rumors spread events easily in africa rumors of spreading. During the fractionation campaign for example has a huge impact on the coverage of the future campaigns of. John how do you mitigate those concerns that people have people nervous to come for treatment because they fear theyre going to get corona virus which means tb doesnt get identified early enough or or malaria doesnt get identified. Right so we did it with a number of lets say rolls or means of engaging you know these of course in the context made so many countries theres. No social media so we can rule a clear. Route size. 0 through various means were you know were working in many of the communities anyway so we have. Trust but certainly as my colleague has mentioned that Building Trust and dealing with rumors and misinformation through. To communication Risk Communication generating trust i mean it is a huge area but also it was mentioned the disasters were in the midst of the season. For us nic and ive only in the philippines. Now so again believe me and Risk Communication and all i seen are a means of getting through in the formation. I think that so thats certainly one area that we and many other many other organizations that. Are represented in this final are in a cage then but it is definitely a real real struggle a lot of misinformation regards to call often but also in regards to the lets say going to else the silage so it is its certainly a big chunk. Of it in africa thats force continuum. Ok are jeremy can i ask you if youre aware of this new bit of research from germany amar and mali into why malaria. Persists during the dry seasons when hardly anyone gets sick and there are 2 new too few mosquitoes to carry the power site suggesting the mosquito performs some sort of genet