In December 2016 the media in Tanzania was preoccupied with questions on the presence or not of the Zika virus in Tanzania. The debate was sparked by a National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) report which pointed out that traces of the Zika virus had been identified in Tanzania. Within a short time, the government refuted the report and asked NIMR to retract the findings, arguing that the reporting process did not follow established procedures. Two central questions demand a close review: first, why did the government demand that the report be retracted? Second, what are the procedure that should have been followed? In this methodological review of the reporting of reportable diseases, an attempt will be made to examine the raison d’etre for the tag of war between the two sides and highlight the procedures that the announce of such findings should have followed. The review concludes with a methodological note to researchers and reporting of findings in health-related studies.