More deaths from sepsis than cancer

SEPSIS IS now a bigger killer than cancer, with more than double the number of deaths worldwide than previously estimated, a global study suggests.

One person every three seconds dies from the condition worldwide, which accounts for almost a fifth of global deaths, say researchers.

Their Global Burden Of Disease Report on sepsis estimates there were 48.9 million cases in 2017, and 11 million deaths, across 195 countries and territories. This equates to just under a fifth of all global deaths that year.

The most recent global estimate, in 2016, was of 19.4 million cases and 5.3 million deaths, based on data on adults in hospitals in seven high-income countries.

These were the US, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, Norway and Sweden.

But while the authors said they were “alarmed” to see the death rates so high, their research shows cases of sepsis and deaths have been falling overall over the last 30 years.

The researchers estimated that there were 60.2 million cases of sepsis in 1990, almost a fifth higher than their 2017 estimate.

In the new study, published in The Lancet, half of all cases occurred in children and adolescents, particularly in low or lowmiddle income countries.

Some 15 per cent of the cases occurred in high-income countries such as the UK, which was not included in the 10 countries with the lowest death and incident rates.

Sepsis, which is hard to spot, occurs when the body responds poorly to a bacterial infection and attacks its own tissue and organs. Deterioration can be rapid, and if it is not detected early, can lead to multi-organ system failure and death. Symptoms include a high or low temperature, fast heart rate and rapid breathing.