All Eyes on Sepsis

Sepsis—the body's potentially deadly response to infection—causes 1 in 5 deaths worldwide, yet there are huge chasms in the knowledge base about it, WHO warns.
 
To address these gaps, a new WHO report implores the global community to double down to create a more coherent narrative around the burden of sepsis.
 
What’s known now?

• Most sepsis research is conducted in high-income countries, yet the vast majority of cases occur in low-resource settings.

• Children account for almost half of the 49 million annual cases worldwide.

• Around half of patients with sepsis in intensive care units acquired the infection in the hospital.

• A patchwork of definitions, diagnostic criteria, and hospital discharge coding complicate measuring the burden is made more difficult