Australia now has its first national response to Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) and Acute Rheumatic Fever (ARF).

The Commonwealth funded RHDAustralia, being launched in Darwin this week, has been established under the Menzies School of Health Research, in partnership with James Cook University and Baker IDI.

Menzies Director, and Director of RHDAustralia, Professor Jonathan Carapetis says it’s part of an international push for better management of ARF and prevention of RHD.

“Tens of millions of people around the world suffer from RHD. Australia is using similar programs to those already running successfully in a number of other countries, but we are one of the first to take a truly national approach such as this.”

Rheumatic Heart Disease is associated with poverty. It has been eradicated from most other developed nations, but in Australia’s remote Indigenous communities, disease rates remain amongst the highest in the world.

ARF is caused by the body’s reaction to a bacterium (streptococcus) prolific in remote Indigenous communities.

It occurs mainly in children between 5 – 14 years old, and affects a number of different areas of the body, including the joints, brain, skin, and heart.

Repeated attacks of ARF leave the heart valves so damaged they can no longer function adequately – this is RHD. In its severest form, the patient either dies, or receives life saving heart surgery.

RHD Australia’s National Manager Brenda Green says the disease is almost unheard of in non-Indigenous Australians, but remains one of the major killers of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are up to eight times more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to be hospitalised for ARF and RHD, and 20 times as likely to die from it. On average Aboriginal people die from RHD in their mid 30’s, which is tragic. Non-Indigenous people with the same disease can expect to live into old age.”

Poor housing and overcrowding in many remote Indigenous communities underlie the initial bacterial infection and ARF, so addressing housing is critical. But there is also a specific treatment to prevent RHD.

Patients with ARF or RHD can be treated with monthly injections of penicillin, but they need to be administered regularly for at least 10 years.

Brenda Green says Australia’s high rates of RHD show the management of that process isn’t working.

She says doctors and health staff are missing the signs of ARF, and many of those who are diagnosed are failing to follow through with the necessary treatment.

RHD Australia will offer a coordinated approach to address that.

“We’ll be establishing a national data base of people with ARF and RHD, so we know what’s going on across the country. We can feed that information back to the jurisdictions, to help them identify areas needing attention. We can also feed that information to governments, to ensure we are putting resources where they are needed.”

RHD Australia Director Professor Jonathan Carapetis says this week’s launch of the centre will lead to better diagnosis and treatment of ARF.

He says because RHD is preventable, there is no reason why any Australian child should die from it.

For more information, or to organise an interview, please contact Laetitia Lemke 0447 275 415.