Surviving sepsis campaign: a project to change sepsis trajectory

Sepsis is an acute and severe disease associated with early and late high mortality, high and growing prevalence, and impressive costs. In October 2002, during the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine annual congress, the Surviving Sepsis Campaign was launched through a "Barcelona Declaration" -- a document calling critical care providers, governments, health agencies and lay people to join the fight against sepsis. The aim of the campaign was to reduce the sepsis mortality rate by 25% within 5 years (actually, this deadline has been ended from 2007 to 2009). In 2003, a group of international critical care and infectious disease experts in the diagnosis and management of infection and sepsis met to develop guidelines that the bedside clinician could use to improve the outcome of severe sepsis and septic shock. A comprehensive document created from the committee's deliberations was published in prestigious journals. Thus, the SSC is a global, multi-organizational initiative to fight sepsis and undoubtedly, this campaign is a historic step for critical care medicine. This paper highlights the recommendations and the strategies proposed by SSC to implement them in intensive care units.