The Health Ministry has instructed the Centre for Public Health in Skopje to carry out additional ground-based adulticide spraying this evening in the Dracevo neighbourhood. In plainer words: emergency mosquito spraying, from the ground, outside the regular schedule.

The reason is specific and it is called West Nile fever. The ministry says the measure was taken on the basis of expert information and a risk assessment by the Skopje public health centre, but also because of the current epidemiological situation with laboratory-confirmed cases of West Nile fever in the country.

Spraying at ten at night, with the windows open

The Kisela Voda municipality used its social channels to ask residents to close windows and doors this evening between 10 p.m. and midnight so the spraying can be carried out safely and effectively.

The request is reasonable. But the timing raises a question none of the authorities has explained: why exactly at ten at night, at the hour when, after a full day above 35 degrees, people in Skopje finally open their windows to cool the flat down? An hour or two later, most of the population would have closed up on their own.

This is not a trivial detail. The effectiveness of the measure depends on how many people follow the instruction - and an instruction that collides with the only part of the day when a flat can cool down does not start with good odds.

The tenth phase this season

This is not the first operation. According to the Skopje public health centre, three rounds of aerial larvicide treatment were carried out during May and June - aimed at the larvae, before the mosquitoes hatch.

In July, a second round of ground-based adulticide treatment targeting adult mosquitoes was also carried out, in Gjorche Petrov, Hrom, Vlae, Karposh, Debar Maalo, Madzir Maalo, the Vardar embankment, Vodno, Przhino, Dracevo, Madzari and Lisiche.

So the regular plan exists and is being implemented. The emergency measure arrives after there are already confirmed cases of the disease.

From prevention to reaction

The difference between these two types of operation is fundamental. Larvicide treatment is prevention - you hit the mosquitoes while they are still water. An emergency adulticide operation after confirmed cases is reaction - you hit the mosquitoes that are already flying among people.

In most infected people, West Nile fever passes without symptoms or as a mild flu-like illness. But in older people and those with weakened immunity it can develop into a severe neuroinvasive form. That is why every confirmed case changes the category of urgency.

Close your windows tonight. And ask yourself - what if next year the treatment of mosquito breeding sites starts earlier and goes harder, so there is no need for emergency operations after the disease has already arrived?