Newborn infections
Neonatal infections are primarily bacterial in origin, and include pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis. Neonatal infections result in over 550 000 neonatal deaths every year. Most of these deaths can be averted by preventive measures, early diagnosis, timely care-seeking, treatment with appropriate antibiotics, and follow up. Early diagnosis requires early recognition of clinical signs, symptoms and syndromes. Possible serious bacterial infection (PSBI) is the most important clinical syndrome in low and middle income countries (LMICs). An estimated 6.9 million episodes of PSBI occur in in young infants aged 0-59 days in LMICs every year.
Maternal and Child Health Care at the Berakas Health Centre
WHO’s work includes: monitoring and data, guidelines and research
Monitoring and data
- Working with countries and partners to implement the Every Newborn: An action plan to end preventable deaths adopted in May 2014 in the framework of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents' Health (2016-30);
- Working with countries to strengthen the availability and quality of data on neonatal infections
- Coordinating the development of indicators at national and subnational level to assess coverage of antibiotic treatment for babies with PBSI
Guidelines
- Regularly updating clinical guidelines for the management of hospital management of neonatal infections and also management where referral is not possible
- Supporting countries to implement these guidelines
Selected resources
WHO recommendations for management of serious bacterial infections in infants aged...
Management of the sick young infant age up to 2 months: IMNCI training course - Participant manual
These training materials are for training of health workers on the updated management guidelines for managing sick young infant (SYI) age 0 to 59 days....
Every year, about 2.5 million children die in the first month of life, with 98% of these deaths occurring in developing countries. In 2017, 47% of all...
Management of the sick young infant age up to 2 months: IMNCI training course - Facilitator guide
This module describes how to care for a young infant age 0 to 59 days. It describes how to use the chart booklet “Management of the Sick Young Infant...
Home visits for the newborn child
Every year, about 3.7 million babies die in the first four weeks of life (2004 estimates). Most of these newborns are born in developing countries and...
Pocket book of hospital care for children: Second edition
This is the second edition of the Pocket book of hospital care for children. It is for use by doctors, nurses and other health workers who are responsible...
The publication provides a summary of evidence and assessment using the GRADE process, and recommendations on the management of common causes of childhood...
Related links
Research
- Implementing studies to improve the management of infants with PSBI in hospitals, health facilities and where referral is not possible
e-Collection – Implementation research on management of sick young infants with PSBI where referral is not possible from:
- Bangladesh (Rahman AE, et al. Applegate JA, et al. Applegate JA, et al)
- Ethiopia (Berhane M, et al. Leul A, et al)
- India (Mukhopadhyay R, et al. Goyal N, et al. Roy S, et al. Awasthi S, et al.)
- Malawi (Guenther T, et al.)
- Nigeria (Ayede AI, et al. Wammanda RD, et al.)
- Pakistan (Ariff S, et al. Bhura M, et al.)
- Cost-effectiveness analysis (Garg CC, et al.)
- Clinical signs of infection and associated mortality (Puri D, et al. Nisar YB, et al.)