Today is World Sepsis Day* - countless events in all parts of the world are raising awareness for sepsis today.

In addition to joining local WSD Events, here are some last minute tips to get involved online or in your institution:

Sign the World Sepsis Declaration

It’s like a petition against sepsis - the more people sign it, the better.

Follow World Sepsis Day on Social Media

World Sepsis Day is ‘World Sepsis Day’ on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook - make sure to follow them if you aren’t yet.

Post to Your Social Media

Posting to your personal or company social media account raises awareness and helps to save lives. Templates for posts are below - it’s as simple as copying and pasting. All post are 280 characters or less, meaning they work on Twitter effortlessly. Most work best with a WSD Infographic or a Sepsis Awareness Clip…

• Sepsis is not only a medical #emergency, but also a global health crisis, affecting up to 30 million people a year - September 13th is #WorldSepsisDay. Join us in raising awareness for #sepsis - awareness saves lives! #stopsepsis #savelives

• September 13th is #WorldSepsisDay - I am/We are participating to raise #awareness for #sepsis and #WorldSepsisDay - what are you doing? Start at www.worldsepsisday.org and help #stopsepsis #savelives

• September 13th is #WorldSepsisDay! Sepsis is the final common pathway to death from most infectious diseases worldwide - these are the most common #sources of #sepsis.

• September 13th is #WorldSepsisDay! While everybody can get sepsis, certain people are at an even higher risk. Join us in raising #awareness for #sepsis - awareness saves lives! #stopsepsis #savelives

• September 13th is #WorldSepsisDay! #Sepsis is a medical emergency and must be treated immediately - if you see 2 or more #symptoms, act immediately. #stopsepsis #savelives

• September 13th is #WorldSepsisDay! #Sepsis is the most preventable cause of death worldwide. It can be prevented by #vaccination, #sanitation, and #awareness. Everything depends on #you! Join us and #stopsepsis #savelives

• September 13th is #WorldSepsisDay! #Sepsis does not end at hospital discharge - many #sepsissurvivors face lifelong consequences. Join us to raise awareness! #stopsepsis #savelives

• September 13th is #WorldSepsisDay! Join our global movement now - it is as easy as downloading our free #infographics or #sepsis #awareness clips from www.worldsepsisday.org/toolkits and posting them from your account. Raising awareness starts with #you. #stopsepsis #savelives

• I am participating in the #WorldSepsisDay #Photochallenge to raise awareness for #sepsis, a disease affecting 30 million people annually, but often neglected by #policymakers, the general public, and even #healthcare #professionals - join the global movement to #stopsepsis now!

• September 13th is #WorldSepsisDay - I am participating in the #photochallenge to raise #awareness for #sepsis and #WorldSepsisDay - what are you doing? Start at www.worldsepsisday.org and help #stopsepsis #savelives

Hashtags

The official hashtags for World Sepsis Day are:

• #WorldSepsisDay

• #Sepsis

• #StopSepsis

• #SaveLives

We explicitly discourage using #WorldSepsisDay2019, #WSD19, or #WSD - if we want to ‘trend’, it is imperative we all use the same hashtags.

Infographics, Sepsis Awareness Clips, and More Free Resources

The WSD Toolkit Section has tons of new material - brand-new Sepsis Awareness Clips (covering symptoms, sources, risk groups, and more in about 30 seconds), posters, new wallpapers, and of course our WSD Infographics in six languages, among many other things - all for free and just two clicks away. You can use the material on social media or anywhere else on the internet, or even print it.

WSD Photo Challenge

The WSD Photo Challenge is a quick and easy way to raise awareness for sepsis and show your support for World Sepsis Day - simply print the photo board you like best, write your name on it, take a picture, and upload to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, or wherever you like.

Sepsis in 3 Minutes - Video

The video ‘What Is Sepsis? (Sepsis explained in 3 minutes)’ has been viewed over 200,000 times across all 7 languages - it explains many facets of the complex topic that is sepsis in just 3 minutes.

Please send the video to your loved ones - it could save their life:

Press Release

A press release as well as a press release template is available for you to customize and disseminate in multiple languages.

2019 WSD Event Poster

After World Sepsis Day, the 2019 WSD Event Poster will summarize all events that took place around WSD this year - make sure to take some pictures.

On September 14th, there will be a form available here (URL to bookmark: www.worldsepsisday.org/wsdposter) allowing you to upload a short description of your event and the best picture, to be featured on the poster. The poster will be made available for download later this year, and be printed and shipped to you later this year or early next year.

Donate to World Sepsis Day

The GSA, the organization behind WSD, is a small non-profit charity trying to make the world a better place - every cent helps and will be put to good use.

Thank you

Thank you so much for supporting World Sepsis Day - it really means the world to us.

For any questions, please contact them. Due to sheer volume, please allow them a couple of days to respond.

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*at least in our time zone ;).

Earlier this month, the member organizations of the European Sepsis Alliance elected the new ESA Steering Committee.

The following people were elected to serve a two-year term on the new ESA SC:

• Antonio Artigas, Spain

• Daniela Filipescu, Romania

• Djillali Annane, France

• Evangelos Giamarellos, Greece

• Ignacio Martin-Loeches, Ireland

• Jean Carlet, France

• Konrad Reinhart, Germany

• Massimo Sartelli, Italy

• Ron Daniels, United Kingdom

The ESA is run by a 12-person steering committee, 9 directly elected by our members, plus the three coordinators of the ESA Working Groups. Given the important work of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the Chair of the SIS-Section of ESICM is a member of the ESA Steering Committee for the first election period as well, in addition to the 12 regular members. The ESA is supported by the WSD Head Office.

Welcome to the new website of the European Sepsis Alliance - we hope you like it. 
We are just getting started, so please excuse it looking a little rough around the edges.

If you want to contribute, join, or get in touch, please contact us!

This article was originally published on the website of the Global Sepsis Alliance, before the website of the ESA existed. It has been retroactively published here for the sake of completeness.

On Monday, March 18th, 2019, we hosted the 2nd Annual Meeting of the European Sepsis Alliance in Brussels.

Sepsis survivors, policy makers, representatives of the European Commission, researchers, representatives of European healthcare societies, as well as other important stakeholders all gathered in the Representation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia to the European Union to discuss how to jointly support the European Sepsis Alliance to accelerate the fight against sepsis in Europe. Besides presentations by Konrad Reinhart, Vida Hamilton, and Necmettin Unal, John McCarthy, sepsis survivor and representative of the UK Sepsis Trust and Shahrzad Kiavash, sepsis survivor and double-amputee triathlete, shared their personal stories of their encounter with sepsis and the achievements of the UK Sepsis Trust in the UK, respectively.

In the second part of the event, the panel discussion ‘Why We Need a Call for Action in Europe – the Patient Perspective’ made the voices of patients heard, a crucial and often underestimated component in the fight against sepsis. Our thanks go to Shahrzad Kiavash, Dennis Kredler, John McCarthy, Idelette Nutma, Aurica Pripa, and Arne Trumann for participating in the panel discussion, as well as to Christiane Hartog for moderating it so very thoughtfully.

The second panel discussion, chaired by MEP José Inácio Faria, explored the need for a comprehensive strategy to tackle infection prevention, sepsis, and antimicrobial resistance.

The 2nd Annual Meeting of the European Sepsis Alliance was rounded off by two working groups, on research on epidemiology and quality of sepsis care in Europe and advocacy and policy.

On behalf of the European Sepsis Alliance and the Global Sepsis Alliance, we call for a comprehensive One Health Pan-European Infection Management Strategy that:

• considers the intrinsic links between antimicrobial resistance, infection prevention/control, and sepsis control and care

• understands the importance of overcoming silos within systems by initiating dialogue between sepsis advocacy groups, sepsis survivors, experts and professional societies and representatives of the European Commission, Council of Ministers, the European Parliament, the ECDC, and the WHO together with representatives and advocates of the AMR and IPC agendas

• promotes awareness of sepsis and the potential of sepsis prevention by increasing vaccination rates and access to clean care, and to clean water, sanitation and hygiene where these are lacking

• educates laypeople and healthcare workers about early recognition of sepsis

• fosters the improvement of sepsis diagnosis and management by evidence-based sepsis management, improvement methodologies and systems resource and design

• supports research and the better application of interoperability to existing national or regional patient-level datasets to better understand the epidemiology and burden of sepsis and AMR

• and considers that AMR, IPC, and sepsis control and care are collectively a major health threat which must become an integral and cohesive part of any national, regional, and global healthcare strategy

The European Sepsis Alliance was founded under the patronage of the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, at our event “Sepsis - A Call to EU Action” in March 2018 and is part of the GSA strategy to establish 6 regional sepsis alliances spanning the world, implementing the demands of the WHO Resolution on Sepsis, and saving lives.

This article was originally published on the website of the Global Sepsis Alliance, before the website of the ESA existed. It has been retroactively published here for the sake of completeness.

On Tuesday, March 20th, 2018, the Global Sepsis Alliance, under the patronage of the EU Commissioner for Health & Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, hosted the event 'Sepsis - The Most Preventable Cause of Death and Disability in Europe - A Call to EU Action' in Brussels, Belgium. More than 120 people from different backgrounds and nationalities participated and enjoyed the keynote of Commissioner Andriukaitis and the presentations of Edward Kelley, Director Service Delivery and Safety from the WHO, Konrad Reinhart, Chair of the Global Sepsis Alliance, Ron Daniels, Founder and CEO of the UK Sepsis Trust, and Gary Cohen, President of Global Health from BD, as well as the personal story of Dennis Kredler, who is a sepsis survivor. All presentations can be downloaded below.

In the second part of the event, we founded the European Sepsis Alliance (ESA), which aims to unite European GSA Members and develop and implement a Pan-European sepsis strategy. In four working groups (Quality Improvement of Early Diagnosis and Management, Awareness Raising and Lobbying, Patient and Family Advocacy, and Research), we laid the foundation for this important milestone.

Before closing, the participants, representing major European stakeholders in the fight against sepsis, unanimously adopted The Brussels Sepsis Resolution (download below), which urges the European Commission, Council of Ministers, and the European Parliament:

• To endorse the WHO Resolution on Sepsis and to encourage all European countries accordingly to develop national Action Plans and strategies to improve prevention, recognition, management, and rehabilitation of sepsis;

• To support a comprehensive Pan-European infection management strategy with sepsis as a key element

• To promote awareness on sepsis by organizing an European Sepsis Week around World Sepsis Day (September 13th)

• To encourage and support the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) to engage in sepsis education for citizens and healthcare professionals following the shining example of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US and similar initiatives in the UK and elsewhere,

• To consider the inherent links between AMR, ICP and sepsis in the new resolution of the EU Parliament to tackle antimicrobial resistance;

• To expand existing EU research programs on Infection control and AMR to better understand the human, medical, and economic burden of sepsis for Europe and to support the development of innovations to shorten and improve the diagnosis and management of sepsis and reduce the burden of its sequelae for survivors

To become involved in the European Sepsis Alliance, please contact us.