Abstract
Pope Francis visited Mozambique from September 4-6, 2019. During the visit, a real-time surveillance system for mass gathering events was implemented in all places where people gathered in Maputo City for early detection of possible outbreaks and other health-related events. The system was implemented at four sites were mass gathering events occurred over the three-day visit. Data were collected by administering a simple questionnaire on a tablet, which collected information about sociodemographics, syndromic diagnoses, and outcomes of the patients that sought medical care. Additionally, a descriptive epidemiological assessment was performed during the event. A total of 150 individuals were attended at the designated places during the event. Of these, 56.7% were female and 90.7% aged > 15 years. The majority of the patients (74.7%) sought care on the third day of the event, which was held at the Zimpeto National Stadium. The most common diagnoses were hypertension (20.7%), hypothermia (15.3%), and headache (11.3%). Almost all cases (95.0%) were discharged, (4.0%) cases were transferred and (1.0%) case resulted in death on the way to the health facility. The surveillance system strategy developed to detect real-time public health events during the Pope?s visit was successfully implemented. No outbreak was identified during the event.
Highlights
Mass gathering events are preplanned collective activities that may be of a cultural, sporting, commercial, religious, social or political nature, held at a pre-determined time, which attract a large contingent of people and may originate in the host country or other parts of the world
The event at which the majority (74.7%) of individuals sought care occurred on the third day at Zimpeto National Stadium
The real-time surveillance system set up during Pope Francis' visit to Mozambique proved to be effective in monitoring the symptoms experienced by attendees who sought medical care; symptoms were generally of moderate severity
Summary
Mass gathering events are preplanned collective activities that may be of a cultural, sporting, commercial, religious, social or political nature, held at a pre-determined time, which attract a large contingent of people and may originate in the host country or other parts of the world. The event duration can range from hours to days [1,2,3]. By their nature, such events can facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases [1,2,3,4] and exacerbate symptoms of chronic disease [5]. The Mozambican Ministry of Health (MoH) implemented a real-time surveillance system to monitor and detect any outbreaks or public health emergencies that might occur during Pope's visit to Mozambique and to enable prompt public heath intervention
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