The Titanic in Belfast, venue of the Critical Care Reviews Meeting 2020

The most comprehensive clinical study on sepsis will be released in The Lancet this Thursday, January 16th, 2020 at 18:05h Central European Time. This research contains the most far-reaching and up-to-date data on the incidence and mortality of sepsis worldwide. This study has the potential to change health policy and disease management all around the world, in both developing and under-developed countries.

The results of said study will be presented at the Critical Care Reviews Meeting this Thursday, January 16th, 2020, at 16:35h Belfast Time (17:35h Central European Time, please click here to see to the event in your time zone). There will be a livestream available (embedded below for your viewing convenience), where you’ll be able to follow along. We urge you to tune in and share the link with your colleagues and other interested parties.

As soon as the presentation has concluded, we’ll share the new numbers on the global burden of sepsis, as well as further documentation.

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Livestream

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Update March 30th: Due to the current situation worldwide, the deadline has been extended to June 30th, 2020.

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Applications and nominations for the 2020 GSA Awards are now open.

The GSA Awards honor major contributions in the fight against sepsis every year and are exclusively and kindly sponsored by the Erin Kay Flatley Memorial Foundation.

The awards are granted in three categories:

1. Governments and healthcare authorities

2. Non-Governmental organizations, patient advocate groups, or healthcare provider groups

3. Individual nominees

In addition to recognition, prestige, and of course a beautiful trophy, winners of category 2 and 3 are awarded $ 2,500 each.

The deadline to apply or nominate is Tuesday, March 31st, 2020. Please share this opportunity with your colleagues, friends, and other interested parties.

If you are having technical troubles, any questions, or feedback on the application process, please contact us.

From the whole Team here at the Global Sepsis Alliance, we wish you a happy new year – much happiness, success, and health to you and your loved ones in 2020.

2020 will be the next milestone year for sepsis awareness - we have a January full of exciting news coming up, such as the 2020 GSA Awards, new data on the global burden of sepsis, updated infographics, and more. An overview of our plans for 2020 is available here.

As of today, all toolkits available for download in our WSD Toolkit Section have been updated for 2020 - with updated WSD logos, an updated powerpoint template, and much more. The new 2020 WSD Infographics will be released in the second half of January.

Thank you for supporting the Global Sepsis Alliance, World Sepsis Day, and the global fight against sepsis throughout 2019 - we really couldn’t do this without you. This year was another great year for sepsis awareness – below we outline the strides taken and a look ahead to our plans for 2020.

A Look Back on 2019

January/February/March

The year started out with the 2nd Annual Meeting of the European Sepsis Alliance, a WSD Supporter Meeting at ISICEM in Brussels, and the 2019 GSA Awards.

April/May/June

In April, the Dubai Resolution was adopted and the Eastern Mediterranean Sepsis Alliance established, the newest one of our regional sepsis alliances. On May 5th, we again celebrated World Hand Hygiene Day with a myriad of events, like the official song, a WHO teleclass, and more.

July/August/september

In July, we significantly improved our websites with all new graphics and launched the new World Sepsis Day Flyer, as well as opened up orders for free marketing material, kindly supported by AMOMED.

In August, we launched the new website of the European Sepsis Alliance and recommended a Ted Talk on sepsis - still worth watching if you didn’t find the time back then…Later in August, and in preparation for World Sepsis Day, we released our new Sepsis Awareness Clips, little video clips explaining different aspects of sepsis which you now can download in our toolkit section. They are based on our original “What Is Sepsis? (sepsis explained in 3 minutes)”-video, which of course remains available on YouTube in 7 languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Turkish, and German). It has been watched on YouTube over 300,000 times, as well as shown at countless medical congresses, meetings of sepsis survivors, and other places.

Over the course of the summer (and in preparation for months), we revamped our governance structure, held a meeting with all our members, adopted new articles, and elected a new board and executive committee. All these changes were made to involve greater diversity of members and collaborators, representing more regions, and extending our reach and global impact.

In September, we celebrated our 8th World Sepsis Day – in addition to many amazing events, summarized on the 2019 WSD Event Poster, our social channels generated a lot of heat, with #WorldSepsisDay trending on Twitter and our Facebook page reaching more than 2.7 million people.

October/November/December

In October, we held not one but two supporters meetings, one at ESICM in Berlin, and the other one at the World Congress of Intensive Care in Melbourne.

In November, we highlighted the relationship between antibiotics and sepsis for World Antibiotic Awareness Week, supported the joint call on patient safety and healthcare-associated infection prevention and control, and improved our websites once again with the addition of a native site-wide dark mode. Later in November, we helped launch the new website of the Asia Pacific Sepsis Alliance and finally released the 2019 WSD Event Poster.

In December, we moved into our new office at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, the Karachi Sepsis Declaration was adopted, and we announced the 2020 WSC Spotlight for March 11th, 2020.

Throughout the Year

Over the year, we released even more material for our toolkit section, such as infographics and pocket cards in more languages, new Sepsis Awareness Posters, the WSD Photo Challenge, as well as shared more stories by sepsis survivors, highlighted and commented on recent sepsis-related studies, and much more. Last but not least, the team here at the Head Office grew, with Simone joining us in October to coordinate the regional sepsis alliances, and Siobhan joining us in December, replacing Angelika who left us in October. We’d like take a moment to thank Angelika for all the work she has done for the Global Sepsis Alliance over the last years - you will be missed Angelika, thank you!

Plans for 2020

2020 will be the next milestone year for sepsis awareness, with many amazing projects and initiatives (some of them still secret). We’ll start by opening applications and nominations for the 2020 GSA Awards in early January – stay tuned for that. On January 16th, at the Critical Care Reviews Meeting 2020 in Belfast, new data on the global burden of sepsis will be presented. The presentation will be live-streamed, and we’ll make sure to share the link with you shortly before the event - check back here in early January to not miss it. We expect to be able to open registrations for the WSC Spotlight: Sepsis and Antimicrobial Resistance – An Existential Threat in January as well.

We are also currently overhauling our infographics and drafting the 2030 World Sepsis Declaration, so it’ll be a busy start of the year.

The WSC Spotlight will take place on March 11th, 2020, free of charge and completely online. We’ll have some amazing speakers lined-up to explore the relationship between antimicrobial resistance and sepsis. Also in March, we’ll host the 3rd Annual Meeting of the European Sepsis Alliance in Brussels, as well as another WSD Supporter Meeting at ISICEM, most likely on March 24th.

We are currently exploring the idea at hosting another Side Event to the World Health Assembly in May, but haven’t made a decision yet. We’ll let you know via our websites and the socials if there is something to announce.

By August at the latest, we plan to open a new World Sepsis Day Store, where you can get merchandise for your events and to raise awareness for sepsis throughout the year. Additionally, over the course of the summer, we plan to again partner with a sponsor (contact us if you are interested) to send out free WSD marketing material, like we did in 2019.

In September, it’ll be time for the 3rd World Sepsis Congress, as well as the 9th World Sepsis Day. We already have some ideas – stay tuned. If you have cool ideas for events for World Sepsis Day, let us know. As for the 3rd WSC, we’ll announce a date in the first half of 2020.

In October, we plan to host another WSD Supporter Meeting, this time at ESICM LIVES in Madrid. We’ll also keep our eyes open for more opportunities for supporter meetings throughout the year.

Over the course of the year, we expect our regional sepsis alliances and membership to grow significantly, as well as to launch a website for the Eastern Mediterranean Sepsis Alliance, which has been founded recently. There will be news regarding GSA Advance and our GSA Committees in 2020 as well.

Of course, we’ll also continue to raise awareness on social media (you should really follow us), as well as via WSD News, our email newsletter which goes out every 5 to 9 weeks. If you aren’t subscribed, you are missing out.

Happy Holidays 🎅

We would like to thank all of you - our supporters, colleagues, friends, volunteers, members, and partners for a great 2019. We wish everybody happy holidays and a good start into the new year, as well as happiness, success, and above all, health. See you in 2020!

Update January 27th, 2020: Due to unforeseen circumstances, we will have to postpone the 2020 WSC Spotlight - it will not take place on March 11th, 2020. Subsequently, registrations will not start in January 2020, either. We will update this post as soon as we know the new date.

Original article:

On March 11th, 2020, we will bring you the ‘WSC Spotlight: Sepsis and Antimicrobial Resistance – An Existential Threat’, an innovative and free online congress exploring the relationship between sepsis and antimicrobial resistance.

Over the course of 8 sessions, around 50 speakers from multiple countries and backgrounds will give short but insightful talks – ranging from framing the global burden of AMR and sepsis, to potential synergies in the fight against both, to how inequalities impact responses to sepsis globally, and much, much more.

Registrations will open in January 2020, and the full program, incl. all speakers and time zones, will be available at that time as well.

World Sepsis Congress is a free online congress bringing knowledge about sepsis to all parts of the world. All the large World Sepsis Congresses take place every two years in the even years (1st WSC in 2016, 2nd WSC in 2018, 3rd WSC in 2020, and so on), while in the uneven years in between, WSC Spotlight shines a spotlight on one specific issue of sepsis.
All talks from World Sepsis Congress and WSC Spotlight are recorded and are available on our YouTube Channel and on Apple Podcasts. They have been accessed over 260,000 times as of December 2019.

In June, we announced the winners of the 2019 Global Sepsis Awards. In addition to the five winners, nine other entities were commended for their valuable contribution in the global fight against sepsis.

Over the coming months, we will give both the 2019 GSA Award Winners as well as the activities and initiatives by the entities that were commended the possibility to share their projects and initiatives in more detail on our websites, and after our colleagues from Italy in June, the project “Stop Sepsis in Croatia” in July, and the ‘6th Annual Jeff Davis Sepsis Challenge 5K’ in September, we would like to introduce the German Sepsis Aid today.

The German Sepsis Aid

The German Sepsis Aid (Deutsche Sepsis-Hilfe e.V., DSH) was founded in 2007 and is the world's first association of sepsis patients and their relatives.

The DSH provides a unique platform for sepsis-survivors and their families to connect with each other, to share experiences, to find support, and to attend trainings. People who are aware of sepsis by own experience volunteer to give practical and psychosocial assistance and information, according to the principle of „sepsis patients help sepsis patients“.

The current number of members is 351. The DHS is a non-profit-organization, which is financed exclusively by donations, membership fees, and subsidies of health insurance companies.

The work of the DSH focuses on 4 main areas:

1. Support and Counseling for Patients, Relatives, and Surviving Relatives

   Central to the work of the DSH is the "sepsis-hotline”, a phone-helpline that was set up for those who have questions about sepsis. The number is 0700 73774700 and can be reached daily between 08:00 and 21:00h. Those who have been affected by sepsis themselves have first-hand experience and can therefore give a good first response.

   Additional inquiries are made by email or using the contact form on the DSH website, with the total number of requests exceeding 500 annually. Specific medical questions can be forwarded to physicians or a psychologist who volunteers for the DSH.

   Currently, a network is being set up regarding certain long-term effects of sepsis. DSH members, who e.g. suffer from cognitive impairment or amputations, have agreed to be available as contact persons in case of specific physical harm.
   

2. Creation and Distribution of Information Materials

   Upon request, the inquirers can receive detailed information material free of charge, e.g. the booklet “Informationen für Betroffene und Angehörige“ (Information for Patients and Relatives) which was edited by the DSH.
   

3. Educating the General Public and Creating Awareness

   Another task of the association is to raise awareness for sepsis. Therefore, the DSH is present at numerous public events with an information booth. Furthermore, the DSH provides information on its homepage and its Facebook page. On request, the association is able to organize public training events on sepsis.
   

4. Support Services to Members of the DSH

   Once a year, a meeting for all DSH members takes place. In addition to lectures and yearly reports, the two-day meeting will focus on the exchange between the members. Twice a year, members receive an exclusive newsletter.

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The Global Sepsis Awards, which are sponsored by the Erin Kay Flatley Memorial Foundation, honor outstanding efforts to increase sepsis awareness and raise the quality of sepsis prevention and management.

The awards are granted in three categories, namely governments and healthcare authorities, non-governmental organizations, patient advocate or healthcare provider groups, and individuals, consistent with the aims of the World Sepsis Declaration and the World Sepsis Day Movement.

Winners in category II and III will receive $2,500 prize money each. Applications and nominations for the 2020 GSA Awards open in January 2020 and close on March 31st, 2020.

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On November 19th, 2019, the Sepsis Alliance Pakistan (SoAP) was launched by a diverse group of 43 doctors in Pakistan, as well as the Karachi Sepsis Declaration adopted. Honorable Governor Sindh Imran Ismail himself signed the Karachi Sepsis Declaration at the Sindh Governor House, Karachi, Pakistan.

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Karachi Sepsis Declaration

Commitment to Improve Sepsis Awareness, Early Recognition, Prevention, Care, and Research in Pakistan

Sepsis results when the body’s response to an infection injures its own tissues leading to vital organ failure and critical illness if not managed early and appropriately. It is responsible for killing over 6 million people per year worldwide, claiming more lives than bowel and breast cancer combined.

Sepsis does not discriminate against age, gender, religion, social status or geographic borders. An estimated 60-80% of deaths in developing countries like Pakistan occur due to sepsis. Low standards of living, poor hygiene, malnutrition, limited access to healthcare facilities and weak health systems contribute to the disproportionately high morbidity and mortality from sepsis in our region.

We acknowledge that;

• Despite the unacceptable number of deaths and disabilities caused by sepsis, the awareness of sepsis among healthcare providers and laypeople in the country is very low.

• There is usually an unacceptable delay in recognizing sepsis and a wide variation in practice among doctors to treat sepsis.

• Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are a major healthcare issue in the country.

• National policies to improve prevention, recognition, and treatment of sepsis are lacking in Pakistan.

On November 19th 2019, members of various medical societies urge government authorities, policy makers, healthcare managers, professionals and philanthropists to help us to;

• Promote Sepsis Awareness among lay people and healthcare workers, by commemorating World Sepsis Day every year on September 13th and throughout the year by focused activities.

• Prioritize Sepsis Prevention by promoting practices of good general hygiene and hand washing, improvement in sanitation, clean deliveries and nutrition, and encouraging vaccination in high-risk groups.

• Reduce the time-to-recognize sepsis by front line physicians and the variation in Sepsis Management in hospitals and intensive care units through undergraduate and postgraduate education and training of healthcare professionals.

• Encourage hospital managements to adopt measures aimed at minimizing the risk of development and spread of AMR and HAI.

• Facilitate collaborative Sepsis Research in the country through establishment of sepsis registries to document burden of disease in Pakistan and identify vulnerable groups and cost effective interventions to improve outcomes.

• Guide policy makers formulate a National Action Plan to adopt the WHO resolution (WHA 70.7) of May 2017 for improving the prevention, diagnosis and clinical management of sepsis

We encourage representatives of various professional societies of physicians, surgeons, paediatricians, emergency and intensive care medicine, infectious diseases and microbiology, public health and nurses from government and nongovernment organizations to join hands with Sepsis Alliance Pakistan (SoAP) to fight sepsis in our country.

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We would like to inform you that we have moved our office from Jena to Berlin this week. We are now based at the Charité University Hospital Berlin, in this beautiful brutalist style building that houses a variety of specialities, including immunology, virology, and now, sepsis.

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New Visitor Address

Global Sepsis Alliance
c/o Charité University Hospital
Hindenburgdamm 27
12203 Berlin
Germany

New telephone number

+49 30 450551419

 

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