‘We are living through a Sepsis pandemic, but no one is talking about it'

Irish Independent

21-05-2025

But there's another condition that silently yet aggressively takes lives, often without being spotted in time – it's called sepsis.
Since the Covid pandemic was declared in 2020, the world recorded 7.1 million deaths linked to the disease. But during that same period, sepsis caused around 11 million deaths globally each year.
According to Professor Steve Kerrigan of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), this lack of attention is deeply alarming and awareness of sepsis remains dangerously low.
'That's not a pandemic?' he said. 'Sepsis is a pandemic.'
Tonight, Professor Kerrigan, who is head of the Cardiovascular Infection Research Group and co-founder/Chief Scientific Officer at Inthelia Therapeutics, will host a talk on the dangers of sepsis as part of the Pint of Science festival.
He'll be sharing the stage at The Waterloo Bar on Baggot Street with a sepsis survivor and the relative of a woman who died from the condition.
In February 2018, Professor Kerrigan and his team carried out a survey and found that only 28pc of the population could define sepsis, which is considered a 'silent killer' both in Ireland and around the world.
He aims to increase public awareness on how to recognise sepsis and understand why early detection is critical.
'It's not like cancer or stroke, where there are widely known signs. Sepsis is very non-specific,' he said. 'That's where the big problem is.'
Professor Kerrigan said sepsis can kill in as little as 12 hours. Even in hospitals, there is no definitive test or biomarker for sepsis, unlike other diseases like cancer.
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'Sepsis is an exaggerated, sudden, overwhelming reaction to an infection by the body,' he said.
'We really need to get people to be able to spot the signs and symptoms because it happens so fast.'
If caught early, the only effective treatment available is antibiotics.
'If we catch the patient early enough, sepsis is fully curable,' Professor Kerrigan said.
'But for every hour you delay treatment, the risk of death increases by 8pc.'
Sepsis remains difficult to spot. Its symptoms often resemble the flu or a cold: fever, chills, fast heartbeat, rapid breathing, disorientation, extreme fatigue.
'The big problem is that the signs and symptoms of sepsis are non-specific. That's why many people ignore them – they think it's just the flu,' Professor Kerrigan said.
'You need to get to the hospital as fast as possible and ask the question: Could this be sepsis? That one question can trigger the right treatment protocol and save a life.'
However, raising awareness is only the beginning. Professor Kerrigan said that healthcare worker training is equally important.
'We need to ensure that all of our health care workers, all of them, need to be trained in understanding what sepsis is and how to spot signs and symptoms,' he said.
Professor Kerrigan also highlighted the urgent need for government-backed research to fight against sepsis and antibiotic resistance.
'We are heading back to the pre-penicillin era, where infections and sepsis could not be effectively treated. If antibiotics fail, we have nothing else to rely on,' he said.
'We're hoping we can develop some tests to see if a person has sepsis, because we have identified a potential biomarker we think is playing a really important role.
'That might be the new diagnostic and the reason why you would give a drug and start initiating antibiotics.'
Professor Kerrigan's talk takes place on Thursday, May 21, at The Waterloo Bar, 36 Baggot Street Upper. Doors open at 6.30pm, with the event set to begin at 7pm. Tickets can be obtained for free on the Pint of Science website