Noting the lack of awareness regarding sepsis, particularly affecting new-borns and pregnant women, doctors and health experts have concurred that the growing incidence of this potentially life-threatening condition may kill more people by 2050 than cancer and heart attacks. Gathered at the second Sepsis Summit India 2021, organised by the leading health awareness institution Integrated Health & Wellbeing (IHW) Council, they emphasized on the need for awareness and early diagnosis as well as controlling the rampant use of antibiotics.
“Sepsis is the most preventable cause of death. Affecting nearly 50 million and killing almost 11 million out of them annually, sepsis takes life every 2.8 seconds. More people are vulnerable to sepsis than to cancer or cardiovascular diseases because it can be caused by many common diseases such as dengue, malaria, UTIs or even diarrhoea. Among most of the deaths caused in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, some can be attributed to this dysregulated immune response. A significant burden of sepsis cases comes from middle income countries of which India is a part,” said Mr Kamal Narayan, CEO, Integrated Health and Wellbeing (IHW) Council.
The World Health Organization defines sepsis as a syndromic response to infection that killed nearly 11 million people worldwide in 2017, and accounted for about 20 per cent of all global deaths.