Roughly half of all Americans have never even heard of the word – and yet, this devastating illness kills someone every two minutes, which is more than prostate cancer, breast cancer and AIDS combined. September is Sepsis Awareness Month. According to MCN Healthcare:

Sepsis is the body’s extreme response to an infection. It is life-threatening, and without timely treatment, sepsis can rapidly lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death. A person’s immune system usually works to fight  bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites to prevent infection. If an infection does occur, the immune system will try to fight it, although the patient may need help with medication such as antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics. However, for reasons researchers don’t understand, sometimes the immune system stops fighting the “invaders,” and begins to turn on itself. This is the start of sepsis.

Sepsis affects more than a million Americans each year and kills up to half of them. The infographic below goes into more detail about sepsis and how to prevent it. Once you’ve had a chance to look it over, let us know how you think we can get this critical information out to more people in our state. Finding new and innovative ways to share important health information is another way we are working toward our long-term goal of one day making Arizona the Healthiest State in the Nation!