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Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene at the World’s Largest Mass Gathering

  • Tropical, Travel and Emerging Infections (L Chen, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

The 2013 Kumbh Mela, a Hindu religious festival and the largest human gathering on earth, drew an estimated 120 million pilgrims to bathe at the holy confluence of the Ganga (Ganges) and Yamuna rivers. To accommodate the massive numbers, the Indian government constructed a temporary city on the flood plains of the two rivers and provided it with roads, electricity, water and sanitation facilities, police stations, and a tiered healthcare system. This phenomenal operation and its impacts have gone largely undocumented. To address this gap, the authors undertook an evaluation and systematic monitoring initiative to study preparedness and response to public health emergencies at the event. This paper describes the water, sanitation, and hygiene components, with particular emphasis on preventive and mitigation strategies; the capacity for surveillance and response to diarrheal disease outbreaks; and the implications of lessons learned for other mass gatherings.

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References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance

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Conflict of Interest

Gregg Greenough, Susan Holman, Satchit Balsari, and Michael Vortmann have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Emergency Medicine Division, Emergency Department, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA

    Michael Vortmann & Satchit Balsari

  2. FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    Satchit Balsari & P. Gregg Greenough

  3. Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Susan R. Holman

  4. Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    P. Gregg Greenough

Authors
  1. Michael Vortmann
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  2. Satchit Balsari
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  3. Susan R. Holman
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  4. P. Gregg Greenough
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Vortmann.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Tropical, Travel, and Emerging Infections

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Vortmann, M., Balsari, S., Holman, S.R. et al. Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene at the World’s Largest Mass Gathering. Curr Infect Dis Rep 17, 5 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11908-015-0461-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11908-015-0461-1

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