Littleover Community School

BBC Young Reporter @ LCS

Is the illness Sepsis a common problem?

By: Delia

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. Common signs and symptoms include fever, increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, and confusion.

The NHS has missed the symptoms of this disease many times and have sent people with this illness away suspecting nothing. Because of the doctors who have simply sent the patients away without any tests being run many lives have been lost including the young and the old. Recently, a two year old girl died of sepsis in Bristol after being diagnosed with a chest infection but not treated urgently. Which highlights the need for it to be treated seriously.

Sepsis is caused by an inflammatory immune response triggered by an infection. Most commonly, the infection is bacterial, but it may also be fungal, viral, or protozoan. Common locations for the primary infection include the lungs, brain, urinary tract, skin, and abdominal organs. Risk factors include very young age, older age, a weakened immune system from conditions such as cancer or diabetes, major trauma, or burns.

Sepsis occurs when an infection goes wrong. Normally the immune system of the body is able to fight the germs and overcome the infection, but in sepsis something goes wrong. The pathogen was at some point able to get into the blood or tissues. The term sepsis is frequently used to refer to septicaemia (blood poisoning). Septicaemia is only one type of sepsis. Bacteraemia specifically refers to the presence of bacteria in the bloodstream (viremia and fungemia are the terms used for viruses and fungi). A sepsis is a medical emergency, as it can put the life in danger, if it is not acted on.

To prevent the death of people with this disease we need to raise the awareness of the consequences.