The 2019 World Sepsis Day Event Poster is now available, summarizing hundreds of events and activities that took place this World Sepsis Day to raise awareness for sepsis. Additionally, we invite you to give feedback on the poster as well as to order printed copies.
Our colleagues from the Asia Pacific Sepsis Alliance (APSA) have launched their new website and unveiled their new logo last Friday - asiapacificsepsisalliance.org.
The APSA was founded in Bangkok in October 2018 and is one of the regional sepsis alliances we are establishing all around the world to work closer with national stakeholders, regional governments, and the WHO regional offices, to implement changes on how sepsis is prioritized, diagnosed, and treated all around the world, as laid out by the WHO Resolution on Sepsis.
The Global Sepsis Alliance is happy to support the Joint Call on Patient Safety and HAI Prevention and Control. A healthcare-associated infection (HAI) is an infection that occurs in a patient during the process of care in a hospital or healthcare facility, which was not present (or incubating) at the time of admission to said facility.
About 20% of sepsis cases can be attributed to HAIs – the remaining 80% are contracted outside of a healthcare facility. Therefore, preventing infections in hospitals is a crucial step to improve patient safety and decrease both sepsis cases and the overuse of antibiotics. Every infection prevented is an antibiotic treatment avoided.
Each November, World Antibiotic Awareness Week increases global awareness of antibiotic resistance and encourages best practices among the general public, healthcare workers, and policy makers.
Sepsis and antibiotics are closely linked – sepsis can occur as the result of antimicrobial resistance and is the driving need for antimicrobial stewardship. Antibiotics are the only really effective treatment for sepsis - for every hour the correct ones aren’t administered, the risk of death increases.
However, this is not the case for all illnesses, so it is crucial to preserve antibiotics for conditions that really need them. For example, nearly 40% of E.coli, the bacteria that causes a huge number of infections, are now resistant to antibiotics, and these organisms account for up to one third of sepsis cases, showing the vital need for responsible use of antimicrobials.
The Global Sepsis Alliance and the World Sepsis Day Movement strongly believe that fighting sepsis with responsible use of antimicrobials and combating antimicrobial resistance can be achieved at the same time.
This is why we are planning on partnering with the WHO to bring you the ‘WSC Spotlight: Sepsis and Antimicrobial Resistance – An Existential Threat’ in early 2020 - stay tuned for more infos soon…
World Prematurity Day on 17 November is one of the most important days in the year to raise awareness of the challenges and burden of preterm birth globally.
The day was initiated by EFCNI and European parent organizations in 2008. In 2010, the US organization March of Dimes, the African organization LittleBigSouls, the Australian National Premmie Foundation, and EFCNI joined across continents to celebrate this special day.
Meanwhile, individuals and organizations from more than 100 countries join forces with activities, events, and commit to action to draw attention to the topic of preterm birth and improve the situation of preterm babies and their families.
This year, the global community celebrates World Prematurity Day under the motto: ‘Born too soon: providing the right care, at the right time, in the right place.’ Besides the color purple - which stands for sensitivity and exceptionality - the socksline has become the symbol for World Prematurity Day. The small pair of purple socks - framed by nine full-size baby socks - symbolizes: 1 in 10 babies is born preterm. Worldwide.
Babies born prematurely often have a weakened immune system, making them especially susceptible to sepsis.
The 3rd Annual Meeting of the European Sepsis Alliance will take place on Monday, March 23rd, 2020 in Brussels, Belgium. Please save the date - the venue, exact time, and program will be announced in early 2020. The 40th ISICEM (International Symposium on Intensive Care & Emergency Medicine) will be held from March 24th to 27th in the Square Brussels Convention Center.
The European Sepsis Alliance was founded under the patronage of the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, at our event “Sepsis - A Call to EU Action” in March 2018 and is part of the GSA strategy to establish 6 regional sepsis alliances spanning the world, implementing the demands of the WHO Resolution on Sepsis, and saving lives. The 2nd Annual Meeting of the ESA was held in March 2019.
Our website now supports your operating systems native dark mode - depending on the settings of your device, this website will be either light or dark, making it more user friendly and easier on the eyes when viewed at night. Please note that you need to use a relatively modern browser for this to work.
Enabling dark mode depends on your device. Here is a quick how-to for the most common operating systems:
iOS / iPad OS (iPhone / iPad)
Make sure you have at least iOS 13.0 installed (you can check in Settings -> General -> Info)
Access control center (by swiping down from the top right on Face ID enabled devices or from the bottom up on devices with a home button)
Long press on the brightness slider and tap the dark mode icon at the bottom left
Android (can be different depending on manufacturer)
Make sure you have at least Android 10 installed (you can check in Settings -> About Phone -> Software Information)
Open the settings app
Navigate to Display -> Theme and enable ‘Dark Theme’ (you can also add a tile to the quick settings pull-down menu)
Mac
Make sure you have at least macOS Mojave (10.14) installed (you can check by clicking on the Apple Menu at the top left, and then ‘About this Mac’)
Open the settings app and navigate to General
Use the buttons at the top to switch between a dark and a light appearance (with macOS Catalina (10.15), you can also set this to automatic, based on sunset at your location)
Windows
Make sure you have at least Windows 10 installed (you can check by clicking on the Start Button -> Settings -> System -> About)
Open the settings app and go to Personalization -> Colors
Under ‘Choose your default app mode’, choose Dark
We are constantly improving our websites, dark mode is just one of many improvements (although a big one). If you have issues with dark mode, have ideas to improve our websites further, or have other feedback, we’d love to hear from you. If you are interested how we implement dark mode, there is a tutorial on the World Sepsis Day website.
Every November, Movember is celebrated all around the world, raising awareness for men’s health, especially focused on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health and suicide prevention. Although sepsis does not primarily affect males - it strikes women and men about equally - we encourage you to join the noble cause of Movember this year, by growing a mo to save a bro, move 60km, host an event, or more.
