We are pleased to share this highly collaborative research effort, supported by KlebNET, reporting the contribution of in-hospital transmission to neonatal sepsis cases, across 27 neonatal units in 13 countries in Africa and South Asia.
Concerningly, we estimated that two-thirds of all neonatal sepsis cases were part of hospital transmission clusters, although this varied at individual hospitals (from no transmission at one hospital, up to 93% of cases at the worst-affected).
Overall this confirms the critical importance of improving infection prevention and control in neonatal units, which could have potentially huge impacts on newborns by reducing the incidence of sepsis. Notably, improving infection prevention would impact not just K. pneumoniae (the most common agent of sepsis in newborns), but all pathogens.
Read the paper in PLoS Medicine:
