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One in eight patients in hospitals in Africa is critically ill, and one in five of the seriously ill dying within a week, according to a study to appear in The Lancet. The researchers behind the largest study of critical diseases in Africa so far conclude that many of these lives could have been saved with access to cheap life -saving treatments.
Being critically ill means seriously influenced vital functions, such as extremely low blood pressure or low oxygen levels in the blood. In the new study, researchers show that one in eight patients in African hospitals, 12.5%, is in this condition. Of these, one in five, 21%, within a week, compared to 2.7% of those who are not critically ill.
A large part of the critically ill patients, 69%, are treated in general departments instead of intensive care units. More than half of the critically ill patients, 56%, do not even receive the basic critical care they need, such as oxygen therapy, intravenous liquids or simple airway management.
“Our study shows that there is a large and often neglected group of patients with critical illness in Africa,” says first author Tim Baker, assistant professor at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet.
The researchers behind the study emphasize that these are fundamental but crucial health interventions that can make a big difference.
“If all patients had access to essential emergency and critical care, we could considerably reduce mortality. Moreover, these interventions are cheap and we could be provided in general departments,” says Carl Otto Schell, researcher at the Department of Global Health at Karolinska Institutet and one of the studies in the study.
The study is the first large -scale mapping of critically ill patients in Africa. Almost 20,000 patients in 180 hospitals in 22 African countries were investigated in the study.
The study is a collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and universities in South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and the UK.
More information:
Tim Baker et al, the African Critican Critical Illness Outcomes Study (ACIOS): a point prevalence study of critical disease in 22 countries in Africa, The Lancet (2025). DOI: 10.1101/2024.03.14.2430427. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan… (24) 02846-0/FullText
Quote: Critical disease is more common than expected in African hospitals, but cheap treatments offer Hope (2025, 27 February) on February 28, 2025 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-02-Chritic-common-african-hospitals.html
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