Antimicrobial resistance-a threat to neonate survival.

Improvements in child survival have contributed much of the gains in life expectancy at birth during the last two decades. At a global level, neonatal mortality has decreased from 36 to 19 deaths per 1000 livebirths between 1990 and 2012. However, the reduction in neonatal mortality between 1990 and 2015 (47%) has lagged behind that of postneonatal under-5 years mortality (58%) globally. The Every Newborn Action Plan aims for countries to have ten or fewer neonatal deaths per 1000 livebirths by 2035 (or 12 or fewer neonatal deaths by 2030). 40% of newborn deaths and stillbirths occur around the time of birth and interventions that focus on facility-based care during this period have been shown to eff ectively prevent deaths and disability. A particular focus of these interventions is on the reduction of neonatal sepsis or meningitis, which accounted for 421 000 deaths or roughly 16% of neonatal deaths in 2013, in which rates of reduction between 1990 and 2012 have been among the slowest. Facilitybased births could help to reduce the risk of sepsis but poor quality facilities are where the dangers of antimicrobial resistance are greatest. Estimates indicate that 56 524 neonates die each year from resistanceattributable neonatal sepsis deaths caused by bacteria resistant to fi rst-line antibiotics in India; the toll in Pakistan is 25 692 neonates. Our understanding of the impact of antimicrobial resistance on sepsis outcomes comes from small singlecentre studies. In Tanzania, 40% of the 300 neonates with sepsis at a neonatal unit tracked in one study had early onset sepsis and 47% had a positive blood culture. Of those, 29% of neonates who were culture positive died compared with 9% who were culture negative. Mortality was increased in neonates with a Gram-negative bacterial infection, extended-spectrum β lactamase producing organism or meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. A single neonatal intensive care unit study from India reported that the proportion of culture positive sepsis was 14·8 per 1000 inborn neonates and 83·0 per 1000 outborn neonates based on 997 blood cultures. Overall sepsis-related mortality was 19%. Most cultures showed Gram-negative bacteria, Klebsiella pneumoniae being the most common pathogen. The Delhi Neonatal Infection Study (DeNIS) followed up a cohort of 88 636 newborn infants for about 3 years in three large hospitals in Delhi, India, and represents one of the largest studies to date of neonatal sepsis and resistance in the Indian subcontinent. A few key results stand out. Rates of culture-proven sepsis were high—9·5 per 1000 livebirths compared with less than 5·0 per 1000 livebirths in high-income countries but lower than the 15·6 per 1000 livebirths reported from the National Neonatal-Perinatal Database of India. Early onset sepsis was common with nearly two-thirds of cases occurring within 72 h of birth. Three pathogens (Klebsiella spp, Acinetobacter spp, and Escherichia coli) were associated with more than half (53%) of the infections. 181 (82%) of 222 infections caused by Acinetobacter spp were multidrug resistant, confi rming that pan-resistant untreatable Acinetobacter spp infections associated with high mortality in neonatal nurseries is a subcontinentinal-wide problem. Sepsis accounted for nearly a quarter of all newborn deaths, higher than the 15% in global estimates noted in 2013. Case fatality rates of culture-positive and culturenegative sepsis were similar to those observed in other low-income and middle-income country settings (fi gure 1).