Sepsis was also a common cause of mortality, with mortality rates higher than those reported from industrialised countries [6] [7] [8] . Although our study data cannot explain the high mortality rates associated with sepsis, it is likely that insufficient early sepsis care may have contributed. Delayed presentation of sepsis patients to the hospital, and subsequently to the ICU, is common [14] . The paucity of resources to manage patients with sepsis (e.g. insufficient amounts of fluids, unavailability of intravenous broad-spectrum antibiotics and unavailability/unreliability of microbiological diagnostics) may have prevented adequate sepsis management at the study ICU. Recently, an expert group published guidelines to help resource poor settings manage critically ill patients with sepsis [15] . The recommendations have been well received in a number of resource limited countries. The patient population included in this study is younger compared with patients admitted to ICUs in industrialised countries [16] . However, our findings are similar to those reported from surveys of critically ill patients treated in other African countries, where life expectancy is comparably low to that of Uganda [5] . Similarly, the mean length of ICU stay in this study resembled that in other parts of Africa. The finding that patients who stayed 6 to 15 days in the ICU experienced better survival to discharge than those treated for less than 5 days or longer than 2 weeks indicates that patients in the study ICU typically die early (within a few days) or relatively late (after 2 weeks). Early deaths can most likely be explained by the lack of trained staff and resources to provide adequate care for critically ill patients with a high disease severity (e.g. those with brain trauma, shock or sepsis).