Late-Onset Sepsis

Antibiotics reduce bacterial load but do not neutralise bacterial ligands or harmful host inflammatory responses. Late-onset sepsis begins after 48 hours of age. Late-onset sepsis is linked to mortality, morbidity, inflammation, brain injury, and adverse long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes. Late-onset sepsis affects about one quarter of extremely preterm infants in participating Australia and New Zealand NICUs. Genetic relatedness analyses suggest that late-onset sepsis episodes originate roughly equally from skin-colonising and gastrointestinal-colonising bacteria.