This weekend the people of Skopje might hear a buzzing overhead in the morning - but this time not from mosquitoes, from a plane. The City of Skopje is carrying out aerial spraying against adult mosquitoes across the city's territory, in the early morning hours.

The treatment is scheduled for the early morning, when the weather conditions are most favourable. If the weather doesn't allow spraying, the operation will be carried out on the first following suitable day. Such disinsection is common in the hot summer months, when the mosquito population grows - and with it the nuisance, but also the risk of the diseases they carry.

The spraying is useful, but the sensible advice is to keep windows closed during those morning hours, and not to take small children and pets outside unnecessarily while the operation lasts. The institutions do their job once they remember the season - the citizen, as usual, is left alone to watch the details that no one will say out loud.