Whatever does not exist does not have a name (African proverb). A new survey conducted by Emmanuel Addo-Yobo and colleagues, and published in PLoS Medicine [1], shows an increase in the prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases in children in Ghana between 1993 and 2003. In this essay, we discuss the context for this new study by exploring what is known about the epidemiology of asthma in Africa.