Between one and seven of every fifty adult sepsis cases starts in hospital

Anyone can develop sepsis, and **most people who do have at least one
underlying medical condition or a recent hospitalisation.**

Who is at higher risk

• Adults 65 or older
• Children younger than one
• People with chronic conditions — diabetes, lung disease
• People with weakened immune systems
• People with recent severe illness, surgery or hospitalisation

That last group is the one worth stating separately, because of what follows
from it.

Sepsis that starts in hospital

Between 10 and 15% of adult sepsis cases each year start in the hospital.

Recent severe illness, surgery or a hospital stay raises the risk of
infection — and infection is what sepsis follows from. A person in hospital
has, by definition, something wrong with them, and frequently a line, a
catheter or a wound: routes in that did not exist a week earlier.

Which places this page's subject alongside healthcare-associated infection
prevention rather than in a separate category.

Sepsis survivors

People who have survived sepsis are named as a group at increased risk —
which is the uncomfortable part. Surviving it does not return you to where you
started; it leaves you more vulnerable to the next episode.

What can be done

People at higher risk can take steps to get ahead of sepsis.

Knowing you are in one of these groups is the step that makes the rest
possible: recognising an infection early, seeking care rather than waiting,
and telling a clinician that you have had sepsis before.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.