Sepsis, the most severe complication of infections, annually affects close to 50 million people and causes or contributes to 11 million deaths, with over 3 million of those deaths being in children or adolescents. Patients critically ill with COVID-19 satisfy the diagnostic criteria for viral sepsis. The WHO considers that most of sepsis deaths are preventable. This makes sepsis the number one cause of preventable deaths worldwide.

That is why the World Health Assembly in 2017 adopted the resolution 'Improving the prevention, diagnosis and clinical management of sepsis'. This resolution urges its member states to include the fight against sepsis 'in national health systems strengthening in the community and in health care settings'. Furthermore, the resolution requests the WHO Director General 'to support Member States, as appropriate, to define standards and establish the necessary guidelines, infrastructures, laboratory capacity, strategies and tools for reducing the incidence of, mortality from and long-term complications of sepsis'.

This session provides new insights on the role of the immune system in sepsis and the potential of novel immunomodulatory therapeutic approaches. Overs an update on the burden of sepsis and an overview on the effectiveness of quality improvement strategies for sepsis prevention and care on the national and health care facility level. It informs on the challenges to fight sepsis in resource-limited settings and the lessons learned from the current pandemic for the fight against infections and sepsis by other pathogens.

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