Kumbh dips raise river pollution, health risks

PUNE: Mass bathing at the Nashik Kumbh Mela can be injurious to health - of humans as well as the River Godavari.
A recently-published study found that pathogens associated with human skin and waste spread into the Godavari river system during mass bathing, and led to substantial loss of bacterial diversity in the river.

Conducted by the researchers at the National Centre for Microbial Resource (NCMR), National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune, the study investigated the impact of human activities on river ecosystems, specifically on its bacterial communities, during Kumbh Mela 2015. Researchers said changes in microbial communities and increase in particular bacterial groups can change the ecology of the river and risk human health.

The analysis found a 130-fold increase in the bacterial load during the event, predicting that subsequent increase in infectious diseases and drug-resistant microbes at the site poses a public health concern. The research group has proposed a detailed study during the forthcoming 2019 Kumbh Mela at Prayag in Uttar Pradesh.

The study, published in an international journal, Microbial Ecology, was a collaborative effort by a group of researchers from NCMR-NCCS and KTHM College, Nashik. From NCMR, the team was led by senior scientists Avinash Sharma and Yogesh Shouche, while scientists Kunal Jani and Dhiraj Dhotre were the other members of the team.

"Bacteria called Corynebacterium godavarianum - isolated from the Godavari during the 2015 Kumbh - has shown resistance to the antibiotic cefotaxime. This supports the presence of high drug-resistant bacterial communities in the samples collected during the event," Sharma said. His colleague Shouche added the results show a loss of 'natural' bacterial diversity of the river. "We also came across faecal bacteria in the water samples. One of the key observations was that there was close to 37.5% loss in bacterial diversity during the Kumbh," Sharma said.

"The sewage and other solid wastes introduced into the river might also have a marked effect on the water chemistry and on river bacterial communities," said Jani. Dhotre, meanwhile, said the sites under study demonstrated the establishment of new microbes, which could represent the magnitude of pilgrims visiting these sites.