Tracking disease in a tent city
This is the last in a series about Harvard’s interdisciplinary work at the Kumbh Mela, a religious gathering in India that every 12 years creates the world’s largest pop-up city. ALLAHABAD, India — Ask to peek at a doctor’s notes or go behind the pharmacy counter in the United States, and you’ll likely be escorted out by security. Deepak Singh has a decidedly different attitude toward outsiders. “Come in!” Singh said in his limited English, shuffling a group of Harvard doctors into his clinic, past the street-side folding table where one of his nurses was signing up patients. Singh, an Allahabad physician with a serious mien and a fuzzy pink sweater-vest, was eager to show off his 18-bed observation tent, his ambulance, and his stockpile of generic medications. He had good reasons for such pride. After all, the clinic didn’t even exist four months ago, when the land it stood on was still...