At the annual congress of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM, October 2002), the Surviving Sepsis Campaign issued their “Barcelona Declaration,“ a call for global action against sepsis. The campaign, a collaborative effort of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM), the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), and the International Sepsis Forum (ISF), estimates that the number of sepsis cases has now reached 18 million annually. With a mortality rate of close to 30percent-flag-change, sepsis is still considered a leading cause of death worldwide. As such, any effort made toward improving prevention, diagnosis, and treatment represents a potentially valuable response to an urgent need. This chapter provides an overview of sepsis global epidemiology, as well as an outline regarding the description and characterization of the problem in Latin America. It should be noted that there are specifi c characteristics between developed and developing countries that may impact the occurrence of sepsis and its consequences. Specifi cally, Latin America exhibits substantial differences in ethnic background, cultural heritage, health services, and clinical research. These features support the importance of exploring, from an epidemiologic and clinical point of view, the sepsis panorama in our setting. In the Latin American context, the approach to the problem has been limited and in many instances susceptible to bias, in the estimates obtained. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that this situation represents a benign scenario of perhaps lower incidence or better prognosis. More studies are needed in the Latin American context if an accurate description of the epidemiology of sepsis, including its risk factors and clinical course, is to be obtained in the different populations at risk. These studies should build on the studies already conducted, and should address the limitations observed.
