Pediatric sepsis in the developing world

Abstract

Sepsis is the leading killer of children worldwide, but this is not reflected in estimates of global mortality. While it is important to classify deaths according to specific causes such as pneumonia, malaria and diarrheal diseases, we contend that it is a mistake to ignore the unifying feature of all of these deaths--they are due to sepsis. The issue of highlighting sepsis as the end result of severe infections is not merely cosmetic but is important for a provision of care especially in resource limited environments where skilled healthcare workers are in short supply and care is being delivered by teams with limited training and clinical skills. Highlighting sepsis and the few simple emergency therapeutic interventions needed will focus on the actual problems that confront clinicians in regions with limited resources.

Keywords: Children; Diarrhea; Malaria; Pneumonia; Sepsis.