Leapfrog Technology and Epidemiology at the World’s Largest Human Gathering Satchit Balsari
In January 2013, a public health team led by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard, with support from the South Asia Institute and the Harvard Global Health Institute, conducted research at the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India. Satchit Balsari, a physician and a researcher, was part of the team. At dusk, a group of medical students in Allahabad trudged up a little hill overlooking the Kumbh Nagri, a temporary city on the banks of the Ganga and Yamuna that, in its short lifetime, hosted the world’s largest human gathering. Unwinding after a long day’s work, the students sipped chai and congregated around a large table in the “dining tent” to sync their iPads to the Internet. Within minutes they had uploaded thousands of data points to a remote server several continents away—data that would help them look for impending epidemics in the densest congregation of humans known to man. They gazed intently at the analytical graphs being generated by their data. Reassured that all was well, they began their journey out of the fairgrounds. It had been another ordinary day at the Kumbh Mela. Millions had come to wash away their sins and had gone home elated. A million others would arrive the next morning. As the students looked down at the sea of electric lights that now illuminated this most magnificent yet ephemeral city, they could hardly believe that the bustling township did not exist until a few months ago and that it would soon be gone, enduring only in the memories of those who had witnessed it. From January to March 2013, over a 55-day period, over 80 million pilgrims attended the Kumbh Mela to bathe at the Sangam, or confluence, of the Ganga, Yamuna, and erstwhile Saraswati rivers. On February 10th, on the Harvard South Asia Institute 45