Infection in the neonates or neonatal sepsis is a devastating condition. In this webinar, we will discuss how infections can harm the babies.

This slide shows the burden of child deaths worldwide. You can see, we have a huge burden of child death - 6.3 million children every year. That is just too huge. Over 99% of these deaths happen in developing countries. Over two thirds of them are preventable by simple interventions. Of 6.3 million U-5 deaths, 2.8 million are neonates- that is nearly 44% of U-5 deaths. This means so many U-5 death happen within just a month of birth. The three most important causes i.e. preterm birth complication, intrapartum related events means asphyxia and sepsis together account for two thirds of neonatal deaths. It is therefore very clear that infections are a major cause of neonatal death and therefore prevention and optimum management of them is really very important for us.

This figure shows case fatality of neonatal sepsis in hospitalized neonates as observed in a recently published Delhi Neonatal Sepsis Registry study in Lancet Global Health. A quarter of babies dies when there is any sepsis in the baby- either culture positive or culture negative.

The other potential harms in the babies include longer stay in the hospitals. Treatment of sepsis itself results in a variety of harms in the baby- what is known as iatrogeneses. There in increased cost on part of families as well as hospitals. Moreover, sepsis results in long term neurodevelopmental disabilities

Key messages there are: Neonatal sepsis is a devastating illness causing many neonates to die. Additionally, it is associated with increased hospital stay, cost, therapy-related complications and neurological disability. It is therefore important for us to prevent and optimally manage this condition.