Four dead, 38 confirmed cases since the start of the year. Three of the dead went in the last week alone. The Health Ministry released the figures on Wednesday, and they are clear enough to need no further explanation: the West Nile virus is here, it is spreading, and it is no longer an exotic textbook diagnosis.

Twelve new cases in seven days. Every patient ended up in hospital, and most of them are from the Skopje region. Among the infected there are 28 men and 10 women, and as many as 33 are over 60 - which means the blow is landing on exactly those whose bodies forgive the least.

The number that tells the whole story

From 2011 to 2025, at the peak of mosquito season, this country recorded fewer than one case a week. Now there are twelve. That is not a statistical deviation, that is a change in order of magnitude. And while that change was happening, nobody raised their voice.

The virus is carried by mosquitoes, and the World Health Organization recalls that around one in 150 infected people develops severe complications that can be fatal. The rest pass through with symptoms resembling an ordinary summer bug - which is precisely why the real number of infections is almost certainly higher than the one on paper.

We are not alone, but that is no comfort

The new cases come after WHO warnings that warmer temperatures suit both the mosquitoes and the virus across Europe. Numbers are rising in Greece and Italy this summer too. Neighbouring Serbia, according to epidemiological data carried in its press, has up to six cases this year.

So: Macedonia with 38 cases and four dead, Serbia with six. The gap is too big to be explained by climate alone. Somebody counts the mosquitoes, somebody sprays the marshes, somebody raises the alarm in time - or does not.

The ministry announced it has stepped up information and protection measures in the affected areas and that mosquito eradication operations are under way. The question that remains is not whether there will be spraying, but why the spraying and the warning arrive after we already have four coffins, and not in May when the season was just beginning.