دور طب الحشود في حماية و تعزيز صحة تجمعات الزائرين في الزيارة الأربعينية للإمام الحسين (ع)‎

Abstract EN

Alarbaeiniya visit to Karbala is one of the largest peaceful human gatherings in the world.

Millions of people come to visit the holy shrine of Imam Al-Hussein (peace be upon him) on foot or by cars.

The Husseiniya visit is aimed at reinforcing the links of visitors to the religion of Islam, starting with the prophet Muhammad and still continuous as Imam Al-Hussein fought to.

The prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) says "Hussein is from me and I am from Hussein".

This gathering is subjected or may be subjected to health risks as a result of the spread of infectious and non-infectious diseases either endemic or expatriate, in addition to the various accidents especially traffic accidents.

This study aims to answer the following question: What can we do as health services providers in order to keep the visitors' health safe and how to strengthen the health services procedures provided by the local health system, which is more burdensome than its capacity designed for the usual conditions as those services face great challenges.

The study focuses on the need to depend on the identification of risks before, during and after the visit by reviewing previous local literature (health studies and scientific research), and to see what has been published as experiences of others during the pilgrimage season and the Olympic Games.

The study explains the importance of applying crowd medicine procedures as well as teaching these procedures as part of the curricula of Iraqi colleges of medicine in order to meet the needs of visitors for getting good medical services.

The universities, health departments, employees in the holy sites and the media have a great role to play in this domain.

There is also a crucial need to activate the social communication medias to strengthen both the culture of volunteering and the management skills of the participants on how to make visitors get rid or modify bad, unhealthy behavior and also to promote the habits of keeping the environment clean by adopting evidence-based practices.

By reviewing the published literature on the health problems that may be faced by the visitor, which have been identified as the most important priorities and which may spread among visitors such as food poisoning, cholera, hepatitis A type, seasonal influenza and pandemic H1N1 and other respiratory diseases such as meningitis and typhoid, the study emphasizes the need to promote the culture of immunization and the need to hold the vaccine card, and highlights the range of the spread of some non-infectious diseases such as arterial blood hypertension and diabetes.

Despite the great risk of the diseases and dangers that may be experienced by visitors, we have not noticed any role for the World Health Organization in providing health care services for this large humanitarian mobilization although this organization is the first adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Health.

Improving the environmental conditions, examining food providing sites, providing healthy drinking water, waste treatment, eliminating rodents and vector insects, controlling free dogs and traffic accidents help reduce the danger of diseases.

We can get advantage of this opportunity to fight the habit of tobacco smoking that is very widely spread among visitors especially young people.

The random distribution, misuse and invalidity of drugs when they are wrongly prescribed by non-specialists constitute a serious health problem for visitors.

The search for proper planning and the investigation of what is going on during every visit are cornerstones for solving the health problems faced by visitors when they deserve the best care and service.

The study indicates the lack of Iraqi research on health problems during the visits.

This study recommends focusing on the priority of scientific research to intervene or solve the health problems of visitors, and the funding of the so-called research moratorium (a mini budget for research projects and priorities of problems) under the supervision of the holy thresholds.

Crowd medicine procedures should be taught in Iraqi colleges of medicine in order to provide quality health services for visitors.