Editor,

Its amazes me the manner in which some Western media houses, and the journalists they employ, work. Especially when it comes to Africa. They will gleefully report any story that makes Africans look like maniacal killers and diseased ones to boot, but when there is a positive story to report, they disappear.

During the entire election period and after it, not a day went without some report by a foreign correspondent saying that Rwanda was about to ‘explode’, was ‘repressed’ and a ‘ticking time-bomb’. Okay, they were reporting the news as they saw it.

But then, here is a story that has barely registered on most foreign news media. It was revealed that among 144 low and middle-income countries only eight countries have achieved universal access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) for adults.

These countries include Cambodia, Cuba and, yes, Rwanda. Not many nations achieve statistics like these, I’m sure that HIV sufferers in the United States don’t enjoy such healthcare. But was this story even reported? Barely, and certainly not in any major newspaper.

I guess that unless a journalist writes about war, hunger and disease in Africa it isn’t a story. That is extremely sad.

I’m not saying that Africans’ problems shouldn’t be reported on. all I am saying is that the entire story should be reported. The bad and the good. Not just the bad.

Sam Rwego
Kimihurura