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The team found that the frontline treatments for neonatal sepsis currently recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) were ineffective against the majority of infections. Compounding the problem, doctors often do not have time to wait for lab results before treating a critically ill newborn, leading to reliance on broad guidelines that may not match the resistance patterns in their hospitals. According to co-author Michelle Harrison, a PhD candidate at the Sydney School of Public Health, the process of trialing and approving a drug for babies takes roughly a decade. Thankfully in Australia we have robust data on infections, which will continue to play an important role in monitoring the appropriateness of our first-line therapies to treat serious infections as antibacterial resistance unfolds." She added that ongoing work in New South Wales is evaluating infection data to ensure local treatment strategies remain effective."