The FIFA World Cup is to be held on the African continent for the first time in 2010. In excess of 350,000 visitors and participants are expected for the event, which will take place in eight cities around South Africa during June and July 2010. It is a unique opportunity for South Africa to showcase the beauty and diversity of its many tourist attractions. While South Africa has successfully hosted a number of large international gatherings, this event poses specific challenges, given its size and diversity of attendees. There is potential for transmission of imported or endemic communicable diseases, especially those that have an increased transmission rate as a result of close proximity of multiple potential carriers, eg, seasonal influenza. Unfortunately, such high‐profile events may also attract deliberate release of biological or other agents. A number of opportunities arise to reduce the risk of acquiring communicable diseases during a mass gathering such as the World Cup, including the pretravel consultation, enhanced epidemic intelligence to timeously detect incidents, the provision of standard operating procedures for epidemic response, and training and pre‐accreditation of food suppliers to reduce food‐borne disease outbreaks. International mass gatherings pose specific challenges not only to implementing control measures due to the mobility of the attendees but also with regard to recognition and management of infectious diseases in travelers returning to their countries of origin.1 There is huge commitment to make the event safe for all who visit the country. Since 1984, all but one of South Africa's winter influenza epidemics have occurred during the time of year that the 2010 World Cup will be staged.2 The … Corresponding Author: Lucille H. Blumberg, MBBCh, MMed (Micro), DTM&H, FFTM (Glasgow), National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Private Bag X4, Sandringham 2131, South Africa. E‐mail: lucilleb{at}nicd.ac.za