One suspected case. That is all it took to decide that after 10pm tonight the entire village of Vojnik would be treated against mosquitoes.

Miroslav Slavkovski, mayor of Staro Nagoričane municipality, reports that the person, suspected of having West Nile fever, had been staying in the village, and that protocol requires disinsection to be carried out. There is as yet no official confirmation of the case from the Kumanovo Public Health Centre.

Slavkovski appealed to beekeepers to take measures to protect their colonies. That is the real cost of every night-time spraying - whoever keeps bees pays it in hives.

Until half past three in the morning across Gazi Baba

In Skopje the mechanics are the same, just over a far larger area. Gazi Baba municipality launched a new emergency mosquito-spraying operation in the evening, and the crews finished only at 03:30 in the morning.

The list of neighbourhoods shows the scale of the territory involved: Keramidnica, Smilkovci, Črešovo, Stajkovci, Singelić, Čento, Indžikovo, Madžari, Triangla, Hipodrom, Ergele, Trubarevo, Goce Delčev, Jurumleri, Raštak, Brnjarci, Viniče, Bulačani, Idrizovo, Drma, Kolonija, Kiril Petruševski, Avtokomanda and Železara.

The operation is coordinated between the Public Health Centre, the City of Skopje and Gazi Baba municipality. Mayor Boban Stefkovski spent the night in the field with the crews.

The institutions are working - as an emergency

"The institutions are working, the institutions are coordinated and the institutions are acting," Stefkovski wrote. And he added: "When it comes to the health and safety of citizens, what is needed is responsibility, timely response and concrete activity on the ground."

None of that is in dispute. Spraying is necessary, coordination between three institutions is exactly what should happen, and a mayor who spends the night in the field is doing more than one who waits for a report.

But the word that keeps recurring in all these statements is "emergency". Emergency operation in Gazi Baba. Emergency disinsection in Vojnik. Night spraying across Karpoš. When the emergency becomes a weekly schedule, then something in the routine was not working.

Spraying is a response, not prevention

West Nile fever is transmitted by mosquitoes that breed in standing water. That means the campaign has two parts - treating adult mosquitoes, which is what you see at night, and treating the breeding sites, which is done far earlier in the season and which nobody films.

The logic of these operations is reactive by design: a case appears, and the area where the patient stayed gets sprayed. That is protocol and it has to be carried out. But a response after a confirmed case is not a strategy for preventing the next one.

Stefkovski announced that the intensified activity will continue in the coming days, depending on conditions on the ground. That means more nights, more appeals to beekeepers, more lists of neighbourhoods.

The question that remains is when this season started for the authorities - in August, when there are cases, or in April, when there is water.