Last Friday’s issue of the Washington Post carried, like many leading newspapers in developed countries, a prominent story announcing the genetic sequencing of both the parasite that causes malaria and of the mosquito that transmits it to people. All such stories emphasised that the details of the sequence of these two organisms, published in the journals Science and Nature, opens up exciting new avenues for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease. In sub-Saharan Africa — home to almost 90 per cent of the 300 million people who are infected by the disease each year — however, the coverage was very different. The front pages of leading newspapers in cities like Kampala and Nairobi continued their coverage of local political stories.