Modelling the Mortality Impact of Treatment Regimens for Antimicrobial-Resistant Neonatal Bloodstream Infections in 7 African Countries

Angela Dramowski of Stellenbosch University in South Africa will determine the most effective antibiotics to use and when to use them for treating bloodstream infections in neonates to reduce mortality rates. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a quarter of a million deaths in children under five are caused by bacterial infections during the first 28 days of life. The causal bacteria and their susceptibility to antibiotics change over time and across different regions, thus standard treatment guidelines are likely outdated. They will assemble infection datasets collected between 2016 and 2018 from eight Sub-Saharan African neonatal units that include the bacterial types and antibiotic susceptibility, the treatment given, and the outcome. They will then develop a probabilistic decision-tree model to estimate the impact of using alternative antibiotics on neonatal mortality compared to the standard treatments, as well as to determine the best timing for recommending different treatment strategies based on age at infection onset.