Mass gatherings health is a recently formalized scientific discipline that deals with all aspects of health at mass gatherings (1). The latter are occasions that attract a sufficient number of people to strain the planning and response capabilities of the organizing hosts. Saudi Arabia, with its extensive and prolonged experience in hosting the Hajj mass gathering, was a leader in advancing the global mass gatherings health agenda and the establishment of the mass gatherings health discipline (2). Starting by hosting the 1st International Conference on Mass Gatherings Medicine, entitled “Global Forum on Mass Gathering Medicine”, organized by the Saudi Ministry of Health and the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal (3). The conference took place in Jeddah in 2010 where the “Jeddah Declaration” was adopted at the end of the event. The declaration proposed steps for the formalization of the new discipline of mass gatherings health and called for the establishment of the Global Centre for Mass Gatherings Medicine (GCMGM) in Saudi Arabia, as well as the hosting of regular international conferences on mass gatherings medicine (4).