The incidence of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa is falling and in many countries on the continent the pattern of malaria infection within the country is becoming more heterogeneous. National malaria control programmes need to take this into account and the 'one size fits all' approach to malaria control may no longer be appropriate, with individual approaches being needed in different parts of a country. This applies particularly to decisions on the introduction of new control tools. Recent experience with Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention and with the RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine provides examples of interventions which need to be deployed on a restricted rather than a national basis, taking account of differences in climate and the intensity of malaria infection between regions within a country. Designing, implementing and monitoring more complex national malaria control programmes will require staff skilled in many disciplines, and substantial funding will be needed to sustain these more complex control programmes, even though the burden of the disease is falling.