CAG Host Infections Laboratory research Drugs (CHILD)

There is a need for fast and reliable diagnostics and effective prevention of infections. This lack causes 50 per cent of all children to be treated unnecessarily with antibiotics during the first two years of their life and 30 per cent to be hospitalised with an infection during childhood. This has significant socio-economic and human costs and contributes to the antibiotic resistance crisis.

CAG CHILD means to improve prevention and treatment of the large number of children affected by infections each year. CAG CHILD consists of an ambitious group of highly committed basic researchers and clinicians, including all four paediatrics wards in the Capital Region of Denmark. This makes it possible to collect biological material from children suffering from infections and infection-like inflammation and to apply it in basic research.
CAG CHILD will contribute with new evidence-based strategies and strengthen the implementation of new knowledge in practice, thus reducing the consequences of these diseases.

Infection is the most frequent cause of disease among Danish children and responsible for 10 per cent of all deaths among children below the age of one. Infections include everything from common airway infections not requiring treatment seen in all children to rarer, life-threatening infections such as meningitis.

The CAG will contribute to the implementation of the latest new knowledge on prevention and diagnosing in the healthcare system’s handling of infections in children.