Today, the second team from the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights arrived at the Kumbh Nagri to continue to study the public health implications of the Kumbh Mela. The public health team that visited the Mela along with the rest of the Harvard contingent in January had initiated a disease surveillance system at the sector hospitals serving the pilgrims visiting the Kumbh. This ambitious undertaking piloted at four of the 10 sector hospitals hopes to capture, in real time, the epidemiology of diseases presenting at the healthcare facilities at the Kumbh Mela. The project is implemented locally by a large network of medical students from across India, who, for the past several weeks, have been diligently recording data from patient registries into their iPads. Navigating bumpy roads, traffic jams, long distances, inclement weather, and reticent physicians (sometimes enthusiastic, often times reluctant, and always overworked), our medical students are having “a time of their life.” They said so themselves – over chai and halva – as we exchanged notes against the tintinnabulation of the evening’s aartis rising simultaneously from the many akharas beyond our fence. Read more