The 'WHA Side Event on Sepsis' takes place tomorrow, Wednesday May 24th 2017, from 12:30 pm Central European Summer Time to approximately 02:30 pm.

The free livestream is available here.

Speakers include high-ranking policy makers, government officials, WHO representatives, patient advocates, sepsis experts, and sepsis survivors. You can download the full program here (PDF, 1 MB).

After the event, we will make the video recording of the event available on our World Sepsis Day YouTube Channel - you can subscribe now to be notified once it is out.

Today, the Global Sepsis Alliance refreshes its design. This step was necessary to be more in line with the two most important projects of the GSA - World Sepsis Day and World Sepsis Congress. The new logo matches our colors, from the pink used by the World Sepsis Day Campaign, to the pink, blue and purple shades used by World Sepsis Congress and WSC Spotlight. The font is the same font used by World Sepsis Day (Neo Sans).

The logo itself is still a globe, symbolizing the global scope and impact of our work to raise awareness about sepsis and our aspiration to bring knowledge about sepsis to all parts of the world, easily accessible and free of charge.

We hope you like the new logo and color scheme. We are looking forward to hear what you think - please head over to Facebook, tweet at us or use the contact form to let us know. Please also let us know if you see the old logo being used somewhere, so we can quickly correct it. Thanks!

A recent study published in Intensive Care Medicine highlights the challenges in the management of sepsis in ICUs in resource-poor settings and makes suggestions for the future.
Sepsis is a major reason for admission to the ICU, in high-income as well as in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and managing it properly and swiftly greatly affects patient outcome.
The study found that although many bacterial pathogens causing sepsis in LMICs are similar to those in high-income countries, resistance patterns to antimicrobial drugs can be very different. Additionally, causes of sepsis in LMICs often include tropical diseases, in which direct damaging effects of pathogens and their products can sometimes be more important than the response of the host.

The full study is available here.

The Global Sepsis Alliance and the World Health Organization have joined forces to host the WSC Spotlight: Maternal and Neonatal Sepsis on September 12th, 2017. The WSC Spotlight is a free online congress in the style of the 1st World Sepsis Congress last year, but focuses on a particular topic, which is maternal and neonatal sepsis.

The congress will be held in English and is open to everyone with an internet connection.
For more information on program, speakers, time zones, and to register for free, please visit www.wscspotlight.org

In 4 distinctive sessions, over 20 speakers from all around the world will share their knowledge on maternal and neonatal sepsis and give updates on sepsis in 10-minute presentations and keynotes. After each talk, the speakers will answer live questions from the audience. After the congress, all presentations will be made available to view on demand on the World Sepsis Congress YouTube Channel and as a Podcast on Apple Podcasts. 

World Health Assembly 2016, for visualization purposes

On Wednesday, May 24th, the Global Sepsis Alliance, jointly with the German Ministry of Health and the International Alliance of Patients’ Organizations, will host the ‘WHA Side Event on Sepsis’ in Geneva, on the occasion of the World Health Assembly passing a resolution on sepsis, which was unanimously recommend by the WHO Executive Board. This will be a quantum leap in the fight against sepsis.

Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, and other high-ranking policy makers, supporters, and sepsis survivors will address why the resolution on sepsis is so important in the global fight against sepsis and what our next steps need to be. A free live-stream of the event is available here.

Speakers include WHO representatives, patient advocates, and sepsis experts.

For the full program, including time and location, please click here.

If you would like to attend the event in person, please contact office@world-sepsis-day.org. Due to limited seating, we recommend registering for the free live-stream here.

Please promote this event and the available live-stream among your members, employees, and colleagues.

On April 14th, the New York Times featured an article by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Jim Dwyer, confirming that Rory’s Regulations have saved 4,727 lives in New York State to date.

The article, A Boy’s Life Is Lost to Sepsis. Thousands Are Saved in His Wake, includes newly released figures from the New York State Department of Health which show that the odds of dying from sepsis in New York State have dropped by 21% for those adults who received faster treatment for sepsis, thanks to Rory’s Regulations.

This is a great example how quality improvement measures for early sepsis diagnostics and treatment can save lives and we want to congralute the Rory Staunton Foundation for this great achievement.

The WHO urges you to focus on the fight against antibiotic resistance in the context of hand hygiene and infection prevention and control (IPC) programmes. Please support the "SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands"-Campaign on May 5th, 2017.

Hand hygiene and infection prevention and control more generally are key weapons in the fight against antibiotic resistance and sepsis and campaigning each year on or around 5 May is one important part of improving behaviour towards IPC best practices. This year the campaign materials are all co-branded with ‘Antibiotics, handle with care’ to demonstrate unity between antimicrobial resistance and IPC efforts.

Who needs to take action:

• we want health workers to clean their hands at the right times, building on hand hygiene improvement efforts made up to now;
• we want chief executive officers and managers to support hand hygiene campaigning and infection prevention and control programmes, to protect patients from antibiotic-resistant infections;
• we want IPC leaders to lead hand hygiene campaigning and start their journey of meeting the core components for infection prevention and control;
• we want policy makers to stop antibiotic resistance spread by demonstrating national support and commitment to infection prevention.

Resources and more information for May 5th can be found here.

Today, the Global Sepsis Alliance is happy to welcome Bactiguard as the newest sponsor of World Sepsis Day.

Bactiguard is a Swedish medical device company with a mission to save lives. To achieve this, they provide infection protection solutions that reduce common healthcare associated infections caused by medical devices. Their technology is based on applying an extremely thin layer of noble metals to devices; this prevents bacterial colonization and subsequently reduces the number of infections.

We look forward to a fruitful cooperation!