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Making Sepsis a National and Global Health Priority – Celebrating 10 Years of World Sepsis Day

It was exactly a decade ago that we organized the inaugural World Sepsis Day. Since then, we have made great progress in our fight against sepsis, and sepsis awareness has markedly risen around the globe. A milestone in this respect was the adoption of the World Health Assembly 70.7 Resolution in 2017. However, even today, only a few governments have followed the Resolution’s call to action: Many nations still need to implement concrete measures in their healthcare systems to make sepsis a priority.

In response to this demand, the recent G7 Health Ministers’ and Leaders’ Communiqués urge governments to “boost the implementation of the WHA Resolution”. In particular, the Communiqué emphasizes the need to “intensify the efforts to strengthen early detection, diagnosis, and therapy of sepsis, and ensure synergy with antimicrobial stewardship and Infection Prevention and Control programs”.

Thus, while celebrating the remarkable progress of sepsis advocacy and clinical systems advancements over the past decade, this event aims to pave the way to make sepsis a global and national health priority. Despite all advances, sepsis still accounts for a staggering 11 million lives lost every year around the world, even without counting the millions of deaths by viral sepsis due to COVID‐19. While sepsis causes enormous loss in high‐income countries, it disproportionately affects vulnerable populations such as young children in resource‐poor countries.

Making sepsis a priority on the global, national, and facility levels requires the engagement of high‐level policymakers, representatives of health authorities, patient organizations, health care providers, science, industry, and civil society. We need to learn from each other by exchanging best practices from around the world. This event aims to spread this message on a global scale and accelerate the fight against sepsis.

Following the scientific symposium and the best practices panel, we will celebrate the achievements of the past 10 years, present the Global Sepsis Awards, and conclude this unique World Sepsis Day event with a fundraising dinner, featuring international artists who share our commitment to the vision of “A World Free of Sepsis”.

Please come and join us on-site or virtually.

Niranjan ‘Tex’ Kissoon
President
Global Sepsis Alliance