A Meeting to identify best antibiotics for children affected by neonatal sepsis, a blood-borne infection that affects babies less than 28 days old, is underway in Accra.
Participants – comprising some health researchers across the world, would discuss a project that would lead to the determination of which antibiotics would work best and under which conditions in order to inform the choice of treatment options to ensure best outcomes.
Neonatal sepsis is characterised by fevers, vomiting, diarrhoea, jaundice, among others, in affected babies.
It kills a lot of children every year in Africa, with estimates ranging between 400,000 to almost two million babies dying every year in Africa from the condition.
It accounts for almost 30 per cent of all deaths in babies under 28 days old across Africa.
The infections can be treated only with antibiotics but because there is antimicrobial resistance, there is the need to understand which type actually works, for which reason a Severe Neonatal Infection Adaptive Platform Trials in Africa (SNIP) Africa project was started.
The five-year project is being funded by the EU under a global health programme.
The project is being implemented in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda by PENTA, an international independent scientific network dedicated to advancing maternal and child health research.
Treatment
Speaking to journalists in Accra yesterday, the Leader, Global Health and Infectious Diseases Research Group of the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine, Professor John Humphrey Amuasi, described neonatal sepsis as very difficult to treat in babies because their immune systems were less developed.
“You need to get the right kind of antibiotics, those that would work against the pathogens, otherwise it’s as good as shooting blanks.
“And so we need to understand what works for what kind of infection. These infections are spread in different ways. Some happen during childbirth, especially if the childbirth is prolonged or if the delivery is not done properly.
“Then you have infections being transmitted from around where the delivery is taking place into the blood of the child.
“Babies have tiny veins that are difficult to find to give them medicines, and this is very challenging,” he said.
Ghana trials
Prof. Amuasi said although the project started last year in Ghana, recruitment of babies for trial would start next week for the next two or three years depending on how things went.
He said after the implementation, information would be given to bodies such as the World Health Organisation and Africa CDC, who were responsible for developing and proposing a more regional or global policy.
Prof. Amuasi advised nursing mothers to desist from applying concoctions on the umbilical cord of babies since doing that amounted to putting micro-organisms directly into the system of the child.He further urged them to send their babies to health facilities immediately they noticed that they were sick so that treatment will start immediately.
“Otherwise, you will end up worsening the infection, and once the infection gets severe beyond a certain point, it become more difficult to treat, for which reason you will need more antibiotics, more specialised care where your chances of survival becomes even lower,” Prof. Amuasi said.
Impact
Touching on the impact the project would make in Africa, the Project Coordinator of SNIP Africa, Professor Julie Anna Bielicki, said she was hopeful the information to be gathered would equip clinicians in Africa with information that would allow them to be confident when manageing babies with neonatal sepsis.
