Disease surveillance during a large religious mass gathering in India: The Prayagraj Kumbh 2019 experience
International Journal of Infectious Diseases·
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.09.1424
- PMID
- 32979588
- PMCID
- PMC7513824
- OpenAlex
- W3088231502
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
The article indicates that incorporating onsite surveillance into mass-gathering planning can support detection, verification, and response to reported disease signals. It identifies acute respiratory illness as a leading reported morbidity category and recommends strengthening its diagnosis and management capacity for future mass gatherings.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The study assessed whether an onsite surveillance system could detect and support responses to disease risks during the 2019 Kumbh Mela mass gathering in Prayagraj, India.
Study design
This was a descriptive journal article about an event-based and indicator-based disease surveillance system implemented during a large mass gathering. The system used reports from health facilities, water testing, media, private facilities, and food safety authorities, with epidemic intelligence for signal assessment and response.
Population and setting
The setting was the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, India, held from January 14 to March 4, 2019, with an estimated 120 million visitors. Sixty-five health facilities contributed reports covering 738,526 hospital encounters.
Main findings
Surveillance covered 22 acute diseases or syndromes, and participating facilities reported 156,154 illnesses. Communicable diseases accounted for 95% of reported illnesses, with acute respiratory illness, acute fever, and skin infections among the reported categories. The system produced 12 early warning signals, and two investigated outbreaks, acute gastroenteritis and chickenpox, were reported as controlled; 20% of tested water samples had inadequate residual chlorine.
Public-health relevance
The article indicates that incorporating onsite surveillance into mass-gathering planning can support detection, verification, and response to reported disease signals. It identifies acute respiratory illness as a leading reported morbidity category and recommends strengthening its diagnosis and management capacity for future mass gatherings.
Important limitations
The abstract does not state explicit study limitations. The reported evidence is limited to surveillance information from the supplied single-article abstract, including reports from participating health facilities and associated data sources; the original paper is required for decision-grade assessment of coverage, completeness, representativeness, and methods.
GIDS interpretation
The article is discoverable in the supplied metadata under surveillance, outbreak investigation, travel medicine, vaccination, climate and environment, gastroenteritis, and India. It provides context on disease surveillance at a mass gathering but does not establish or confirm any live surveillance signal.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 12 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.