New Delhi, March 4 -- A new study has revealed an alarmingly high rate of critically ill patients in African hospitals, alongside a concerning lack of access to the most fundamental critical care across the continent.

Patients were classified as critically ill if at least one vital sign was severely abnormal. According to the study, published in The Lancet, one in eight hospital patients in Africa is critically ill. Of these, one in five (21 per cent) die within a week, compared to just 2.7 per cent of non-critically ill patients.

The research, conducted by the African Perioperative Research Group (APORG), is the first continent-wide epidemiological study of critical care illness. It surveyed 19,872 patients across 180 hospitals in 22 A...