![\"Emma](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/d06dcdd71082466819bad9888086edf7ca470013.jpg\")
Camera IconEmma Bourke, with Sofia, who was born at 25 weeks and Clinical Professor Tobias Strunk. Credit: Andrew Ritchie\/The West Australian<\/p>\nTesting newborns for sepsis will be faster and more accurate under a world-first blood test being developed in WA that could save the lives of thousands of babies every year.<\/p>\n
Neonatal sepsis is a serious infection that can kill babies or cause lifelong disabilities if not picked up quickly.<\/p>\n
A decade ago, while sharing beers at a pub, researchers Andrew Currie from Murdoch University and Tobias Strunk from the Child and Adolescent Health Service resolved to focus their energies on developing a speedier test to diagnose sepsis in newborns.<\/p>\n
Thanks to ongoing funding from Telethon, the process they pioneered could be in hospitals within two years.<\/p>\n
Clinical Professor Strunk said babies born premature were particularly vulnerable to sepsis.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn untreated infection can have catastrophic outcomes,\u201d he said. \u201c(This test) will accelerate the response. It will allow us to inform the parents as well of what the likely outcome is, and to implement the right therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is likely that an earlier diagnosis, earlier treatment, will result in fewer deaths, but also those that do survive have a better chance of intact survival because, unfortunately, sepsis treated late may also have late effects that only emerge sometimes years after the baby has survived.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camera IconEmma Bourke, with Sofia, who was born at 25 weeks and Clinical Professor Tobias Strunk. Credit: Andrew Ritchie\/The West Australian<\/p>\n
Mum of five Emma Bourke knows only too well how vulnerable pre-term babies can be, with all of her children arriving before their due dates.<\/p>\n
Little Sofia became the earliest of them all when she was born on September 6, after just 25 weeks of pregnancy and a rushed trip to hospital in the back of an ambulance.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a very big shock to us all,\u201d Ms Bourke said. \u201cBut the best Father\u2019s Day gift ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Initially unwell, Sofia was given antibiotics for suspected sepsis. Ms Bourke said the confronting experience was \u201cquite scary\u201d, knowing the risk of infections for such a premature baby.<\/p>\n
But she is now doing well in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at King Edward Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n
Professor Currie said sepsis was a difficult disease to identify.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt presents in many different and very subtle ways,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly hard for clinicians to know what they\u2019re actually looking at. And so, this test is really about providing that certainty as fast as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, we\u2019re very aware that many infants who are suspected of sepsis don\u2019t have it, and they get antibiotics anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019ve got to stop that unnecessary antibiotics. One, because it has an impact on their development, but two, obviously it can lead to antimicrobial resistance across the entire hospital system.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Sofia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/bb88dc3a9097e9dceabb82b732407d08d754da32.jpg\")
Camera IconSofia Bourke was born at 25 weeks and is now 3 weeks old. Credit: Andrew Ritchie\/The West Australian<\/p>\n
The new test, which uses a small machine to detect blood bio-markers, will improve the accuracy of sepsis diagnosis in babies from 60 per cent to 95 per cent.<\/p>\n
And it will provide a result at the bedside in under 30 minutes, instead of needing to be sent off to a lab for a diagnosis that could take hours.<\/p>\n
Minister for Medical Research Stephen Dawson said the sepsis test would make \u201ca world of difference\u201d to newborns, backed by funding from Telethon and the State Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, sepsis can lead to organ failure or indeed death,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s really important that our doctors have the best tools available to understand what\u2019s wrong with these children as quickly as possible, so that they can be treated and can be looked after.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Testing newborns for sepsis will be faster and more accurate under a world-first blood test being developed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":915808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,137,44,501],"class_list":["post-915807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-news","tag-telethon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/915808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}