Wiltrud Abels

Dr. Wiltrud Abels is a Senior physician specializing in anesthesiology with a focus on surgical intensive care medicine at the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, where she has worked since 2012. She is a specialist in anesthesiology with additional qualification in intensive care medicine.

Her research interests focus on:

• Critical illness caused by severe infections and sepsis
• Global health initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Hygiene and infection prevention and control (IPC)
• Telemedicine applications for sepsis detection
• Antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic stewardship

Dr. Abels completed her doctoral thesis on perioperative care quality improvement through a clinical partnership in Tanzania. She has extensive global health experience including humanitarian work with the German Red Cross during the West African Ebola outbreak in Liberia (2015) and collaboration on IPC training in Sierra Leone (2019).

She currently co-leads a Charité subproject within the BMBF-funded STAIRS network, piloting an African telemedicine network for sepsis detection and care in sub-Saharan Africa, with synergies in hygiene, antimicrobial resistance, and antibiotic stewardship.

Since 2020, Dr. Abels has also worked part-time for the German Sepsis Foundation while maintaining her position at Charité.