New Approaches to Preventing, Diagnosing, and Treating Neonatal Sepsis

Abstract

Neonatal sepsis or septicaemia is a clinical syndrome characterized by systemic signs of circulatory compromise (e.g., poor peripheral perfusion, pallor, hypotonia, poor responsiveness) caused by invasion of the bloodstream by bacteria in the first month of life. In the pre-antibiotic era neonatal sepsis was usually fatal. Case fatality rates in antibiotic treated infants now range between 5% and 60% with the highest rates reported from the lowestincome countries [1]. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1 million deaths per year (10% of all under-five mortality) are due to neonatal sepsis and that 42% of these deaths occur in the first week of life [2]. There are wide disparities in neonatal care between highand low-income countries. In high-income countries the major concern is the increasing numbers of extremely premature infants with high nosocomial infection rates due to multiresistant organisms in intensive care units. Health facility infections are also a major problem in lowincome countries, but the more pressing issues are the high proportion of home deliveries in unclean environments predisposing to sepsis and ensuring that all neonates have access to effective interventions from health care providers in the first days of life 2 . Indeed, new strategies that can prevent, diagnose, and treat neonates with sepsis are needed in both low- and high-income settings.