Kumbh Mela 2010

The concept of Kumbh Mela is almost incomprehensible to me. I can understand and appreciate the traditional aspects of religion, and keeping these aspects sacred. What I can't understand is the practicality of Kumbh Mela. Having a large amount of people bathe together in a river is not a wise idea in this century. Back in the day thousands of years ago, before the danger of immense disease and sickness, this may have been a nice ritual. But figuring today how many people may be wanting to participate in the bathing ritual, and the potential that some of these people may have poor hygiene or illness it does not seem wise. For example, if someone was bathing that had swine flu, there is a chance they may pass it on to others. In this day and age it is not moral to take such a risk on other people's health. Personally, I would not want to bathe with a large amount of strangers just for hygenic reasons, and I'm sure many people would share a similar viewpoint.
There must be a way to carry on the tradition of Kumbh Mela that would be easier to accomodate for the masses. A great suggestion as seen on http://www.kumbamela.org/ would be to get your birth chart engraved on a copper plate. I believe it would be more pratical, yet still keeping way with tradition, to make this the primary aspect of Kumbh Mela. It would still allow the portrayal of symbolic significance and tradition. Although many elders and keen religious supporters may see this as an insulting inquisition, it is just an outsiders viewpoint of a tradition that doesn't seem to hold as well as it once did. It is not safe to bathe with strangers. Maybe this is just a Canadian perspective, but I find it unhygenic and unreasonable to expect such a vast amount of people to participate in this tradition. You may not be able to re write tradition, because it is so sacred, but you should be able to slightly modify it to make it more suitable to the ensuing generation.