Half of ICU patients have sepsis, more than 45% are caused by drug resistant bugs: Study

More than half of the patients in intensive care units in India suffer from sepsis, a life-threatening condition caused by blood infections, according to a new study that has also revealed a sharp rise in such cases over the past decade.

An Indo-Australian team of researchers has found sepsis in over 56 per cent cases among 677 patients sampled from 35 ICUs all over the country. Worryingly, in 45 per cent of cases, the infection was caused by multi-drug resistant bacteria.

"We found either the presence of infection or the presence of organ failure as a result of the body's reaction to the infections. The previous estimate (carried out a decade ago) was less than 30 per cent of ICU patients having sepsis,” Vivekanand Jha, director, George Institute for Global Health, Delhi and one of the coauthors of the paper told DH.

India records an estimated 11 million sepsis cases a year with close to 3 million deaths. Sepsis is the most common cause of admission to an ICU and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, but data on the epidemiology of sepsis in Indian ICUs are limited.

Three separate studies carried out between 2006 and 2011 have estimated the prevalence of sepsis between 6 per cent to 28 per cent among ICU patients. In contrast, the new study presents an alarming trend and flagged the threats posed by multi-drug resistant bacteria.

The researchers asked doctors managing the ICU on the prevalence of sepsis in patients under their care and found 382 of 677 patients had this life-threatening complication at the point when the study was conducted. More than 45 per cent of infections were caused by the MDR bacteria and 27.6 per cent of the patients died after 30 days.

"Our data highlights both the huge burden of sepsis and of antimicrobial resistance - in many ways a 'double whammy'. Urgent action is needed to strengthen timely recognition, improve awareness, and bolster sepsis and AMR research in India," says Bharath Kumar, who led the Apollo team that participated in the study.

The cause of sepsis was predominately bacterial infections in 79 per cent of patients with fungal infections causing 14 per cent of infections. Importantly, approximately 45 per cent of infections were caused by multidrug-resistant organisms” says Naomi Hammond, lead author on the paper at the University of New South Wales.

Because of the MDR, Jha explains, such patients can’t be treated with relatively simple antibiotics. “The care for such patients would be more complicated and the cost of care would increase too,” he said. The study has appeared in the journal Chest.

Check out the latest videos from DH: