Author: Kirsty Sands, Scientific Lead, Global Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance Research, University of Oxford

Sepsis occurs when one’s immune system has an extreme response to an infection. It’s a life-threatening condition: globally, it accounts for about 11 million deaths – 20% of all deaths per year. And it doesn’t just affect adults. In 2020, 2.4 million newborn babies died of sepsis in the first month of their lives. Most of these deaths happened in sub-Saharan Africa. The main treatment for sepsis is antibiotics. However, the overuse and misuse of antibiotics in human medicine and agriculture has led to antimicrobial resistance – a process in which bacteria, fungi and parasites have developed the ability to…