Six deaths from West Nile fever in a single season. The latest is a 72-year-old resident of Aerodrom with underlying conditions, hospitalised fifteen days before he died. It is a heavy number on its own, but it turns dramatic the moment you set it next to the history.

From 2011, when the virus was first registered in the country, through 2025, a total of five people died. This year, in the space of a few months, six have. Confirmed cases this season number 51 - almost as many as every confirmed case from 2011 to 2025 put together. This is not a trend continuing. It is a trend breaking.

The Clinic for Infectious Diseases is currently treating 18 patients, 15 of them with the neuroinvasive form of the infection confirmed in the laboratory. Five older patients are in intensive care with a severe clinical picture. Twenty-seven have been treated and sent home so far. The youngest hospitalised patient is 26 and in good condition - which means age helps, but guarantees nothing.

The virus is already circulating locally

The key piece of news is not the number of the sick. It is the raven in Resen. The Food and Veterinary Agency confirmed that a dead raven found in the central park near the municipality building was infected with the virus. Health Minister Sasho Klekovski explained why that matters: the raven is not a migratory bird, it lives in the same habitat, and its death points to the virus circulating locally.

In other words, the virus was not brought in and carried back out. It is staying here. The Public Health Centres in Bitola and the Municipality of Resen have been notified of reinforced measures and mosquito spraying. Two more birds from the Skopje region are being tested.

The appeal to citizens is to report dead ravens. A reasonable appeal - and also an admission that monitoring rests on somebody happening to notice a dead bird in a park. The mosquito spraying, meanwhile, did not begin when the season began. It began when Resen got a confirmed case in a bird. The difference between prevention and reaction is measured in days exactly like these.

Six dead in one year against five in fourteen. The number has already been said out loud. The question is whether anyone heard it in time.