In a span of about two weeks, a similar number of reports on malaria, one of the most important diseases in the region, have been published with divergent but serious implications on the way forward.

Both reports, one from Kenya and the other covering Tanzania, are in agreement that, indeed, malaria prevalence has generally been on the decline in the last five years in several African countries.

The Kenya Malaria Indicator Survey 2010 released about a week ago says this welcome development is a direct result of well-managed control programmes which involved distribution of nets, effective medicines and vector suppression.

On the other hand, the Tanzanian-Danish study argues that the decline in malaria prevalence is not attributable to human interventions but a mystical almost total disappearance of mosquitoes from many parts of the region.

The Tanzanian study will be swimming against hundreds of others which favour human interventions as the most plausible reason for the marked fall in malaria incidence in the region.

Although the team says it has evaluated mosquito populations for more than 10 years, sometimes in the villages, the team might find it difficult, if not impossible, to sell its point. This is mainly because malaria, just like HIV, will resist any radical thinking that threatened the bottom line.

The least that can be done is to make a critical evaluation of this new study whether, indeed, the malaria mosquito is disappearing and if so why.

Scientists even within Kenya are not agreed on the effects climate change will have on species distribution and how this would impact on human health but at least they should keep looking.