A new study says that sepsis infections and deaths worldwide are double than what was previously estimated. Sepsis also remains the most common cause of in-hospital deaths in America, costing the country around $24 billion a year. The study was published in the journal the Lancet. The researchers found that sepsis has killed fewer people over the last couple of decades, but still accounts for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide.
Deadly condition
The study estimates that in 2017, there were around 48.9 million cases of sepsis all over the world and around 11 million deaths. That means that 19.7% of all the deaths globally were related to sepsis. The previous global estimates were significantly lower. When someone has sepsis, their body overreacts to an infection and this immune response becomes out of control and it can cause the organs to shut down.
The deaths from sepsis in 2017 peaked in early childhood, declined in adulthood and rose again among the elderly. In 2017, an estimated 20.3 million sepsis cases and 2.9 million deaths globally were among children younger than 5 years old. A lot of them were newborns.
The researchers of the study came to these numbers looking at more than 109 million individual death records and trends from 1990 through 2017. The data was taken from the Global Burden of Disease study. The study reported on 282 primary causes of deaths in 196 countries.
The researchers used records of people who were hospitalized with sepsis and those with sepsis who were not treated in a hospital. The earlier studies focused on the hospital records only, and most past researches did not capture the global scope of sepsis.
This study found that the number of sepsis cases fell at 37% and the deaths fell more than 52% since 1990. It was still a massive problem in parts of the world such as South and East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania. From 1990 to 2017, the most common cause of sepsis was diarrheal disease, and the most common underlying cause of sepsis-related deaths were lower respiratory infections.
The most common injury that started sepsis was an injury from a car accident. Maternal disorders like postpartum infections were the most common non-communicable disease that resulted in sepsis. Antimicrobial resistance was also noted as an important driver of sepsis, particularly in clinics and hospitals.
Dr. Mohsen Naghavi, a professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine, stated that they were alarmed to find out that the deaths that were related to sepsis were much higher than previously estimated, especially as the condition is both preventable and treatable. They need a renewed focus on sepsis prevention among newborns and on tackling antimicrobial resistance, which is an important driver of sepsis.
What is sepsis?
Sepsis is a dangerous condition that is caused by the body's response to an infection. Your immune system protects you from a lot of illnesses and infections, but it is also possible for it to go into overdrive in response to an infection.
Sepsis is a condition that develops when the chemicals in the immune system releases into the bloodstream to fight the infection but cause inflammation throughout the body instead. The severe cases of sepsis can lead to septic shock, which is a medical emergency. There are around 1.5 million cases of sepsis every year, according to the CDC. This kind of infection kills more than 250,000 people a year in America alone.
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