A Look Back on 2019, Plans for 2020, and Happy Holidays from the Team at the Global Sepsis Alliance

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Thank you for supporting the World Sepsis Day, the Global Sepsis Alliance, and the global fight against sepsis throughout 2019 - we really couldn’t do this without you. This year was another great year for sepsis awareness – below we outline the strides taken and a look ahead to our plans for 2020.

 

A Look Back on 2019

 
 

April/May/June

In April, the Dubai Resolution was adopted and the Eastern Mediterranean Sepsis Alliance established, the newest one of our regional sepsis alliances. On May 5th, we again celebrated World Hand Hygiene Day with a myriad of events, like the official song, a WHO teleclass, and more.

 

July/August/september

In July, we significantly improved our websites with all new graphics and launched the new World Sepsis Day Flyer, as well as opened up orders for free marketing material, kindly supported by AMOMED.

In August, we launched the new website of the European Sepsis Alliance and recommended a Ted Talk on sepsis - still worth watching if you didn’t find the time back then…Later in August, and in preparation for World Sepsis Day, we released our new Sepsis Awareness Clips, little video clips explaining different aspects of sepsis which you now can download in our toolkit section. They are based on our original “What Is Sepsis? (sepsis explained in 3 minutes)”-video, which of course remains available on YouTube in 7 languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, FrenchItalian, Turkish, and German). It has been watched on YouTube over 300,000 times, as well as shown at countless medical congresses, meetings of sepsis survivors, and other places.

Over the course of the summer (and in preparation for months), we revamped our governance structure, held a meeting with all our members, adopted new articles, and elected a new board and executive committee. All these changes were made to involve greater diversity of members and collaborators, representing more regions, and extending our reach and global impact.

In September, we celebrated our 8th World Sepsis Day – in addition to many amazing events, summarized on the 2019 WSD Event Poster, our social channels generated a lot of heat, with #WorldSepsisDay trending on Twitter and our Facebook page reaching more than 2.7 million people.

 
 

Throughout the Year

Over the year, we released much more material for our toolkit section, such as infographics and pocket cards in more languages, new Sepsis Awareness Posters, the WSD Photo Challenge, as well as shared more stories by sepsis survivors, highlighted and commented on recent sepsis-related studies, and much more. Last but not least, the team here at the Head Office grew, with Simone joining us in October to coordinate the regional sepsis alliances, and Siobhan joining us in December, replacing Angelika who left us in October. We’d like take a moment to thank Angelika for all the work she has done for the Global Sepsis Alliance over the last years - you will be missed Angelika, thank you!

 

Plans for 2020

2020 will be the next milestone year for sepsis awareness, with many amazing projects and initiatives (some of them still secret). We’ll start by opening applications and nominations for the 2020 GSA Awards in early January – stay tuned for that. On January 16th, at the Critical Care Reviews Meeting 2020 in Belfast, new data on the global burden of sepsis will be presented. The presentation will be live-streamed, and we’ll make sure to share the link with you shortly before the event - check back here in early January to not miss it. We expect to be able to open registrations for the WSC Spotlight: Sepsis and Antimicrobial Resistance – An Existential Threat in January as well.

We are also currently overhauling our infographics and drafting the 2030 World Sepsis Declaration, so it’ll be a busy start of the year.

The WSC Spotlight will take place on March 11th, 2020, free of charge and completely online. We’ll have some amazing speakers lined-up to explore the relationship between antimicrobial resistance and sepsis. Also in March, we’ll host the 3rd Annual Meeting of the European Sepsis Alliance in Brussels, as well as another WSD Supporter Meeting at ISICEM, most likely on March 24th.

We are currently exploring the idea at hosting another Side Event to the World Health Assembly in May, but haven’t made a decision yet. We’ll let you know via our websites and the socials if there is something to announce.

By August at the latest, we plan to open a new World Sepsis Day Store, where you can get merchandise for your events and to raise awareness for sepsis throughout the year. Additionally, over the course of the summer, we plan to again partner with a sponsor (contact us if you are interested) to send out free WSD marketing material, like we did in 2019.

In September, it’ll be time for the 3rd World Sepsis Congress, as well as the 9th World Sepsis Day. We already have some ideas – stay tuned. If you have cool ideas for events for World Sepsis Day, let us know. As for the 3rd WSC, we’ll announce a date in the first half of 2020.

In October, we plan to host another WSD Supporter Meeting, this time at ESICM LIVES in Madrid. We’ll also keep our eyes open for more opportunities for supporter meetings throughout the year.

Over the course of the year, we expect our regional sepsis alliances and membership to grow significantly, as well as to launch a website for the Eastern Mediterranean Sepsis Alliance, which has been founded recently. There will be news regarding GSA Advance and our GSA Committees in 2020 as well.

Of course, we’ll also continue to raise awareness on social media (you should really follow us), as well as via WSD News, our email newsletter which goes out every 5 to 9 weeks. If you aren’t subscribed, you are missing out.

 

Happy Holidays 🎅

We would like to thank all of you - our supporters, colleagues, friends, volunteers, members, and partners for a great 2019. We wish everybody happy holidays and a good start into the new year, as well as happiness, success, and above all, health. See you in 2020!

Marvin Zick