Infection control at mass religious gatherings

Infectious diseases that can cause epidemics are an ongoing risk to global health security.1 Mass gatherings such as religious, sporting, and festival events attract millions of people from across the world and create optimal conditions for importation, acquisition, transmission, and onward spread of infectious diseases,23 including monkeypox.One of the world’s largest annual mass gatherings of religious pilgrims, the Grand Magal of Touba, will be held on 14 and 15 September 2022 in Touba, a city 200 km east of Senegal’s capital, Dakar.4 Around four million pilgrims are expected from across west Africa, the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Pilgrims will live together and perform religious rituals together, including partial circumambulation of the central mosque and visits to the mausoleum of Sheikh Amadou Bamba, founder of the Mouride brotherhood.Over the past two decades, west African countries have experienced intermittent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Lassa fever, Ebola, yellow fever,…
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