Reports and Findings
More than 35% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults live with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease. There is a pressing need for chronic disease prevention and management among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. Therefore, this review aimed to synthesise a decade of contemporary evidence to understand the barriers and enablers of chronic disease prevention and management for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People with a view to developing policy and practice recommendations.
Sensitivity and positive predictive value of cardiac auscultation compared with echocardiography is poor, regardless of the expertise of the auscultator.
Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) improve patient care by standardising medical practice. However, little is known about their applicability in low-resource settings. Since 2010, Fiji has introduced guidelines to increase the application of evidence-based practice.
The reduction in ARF recurrence indicates that the RHD control program has improved secondary prophylaxis; a decline in RHD incidence is expected to follow.
Rheumatic heart disease is the largest contributor to cardiac-related mortality in children worldwide. Outcomes in endemic settings after its antecedent illness, acute rheumatic fever, are not well understood. We aimed to describe 3-5 year mortality, acute rheumatic fever recurrence, changes in carditis, and correlates of mortality after acute rheumatic fever.
In the 21st century, rheumatic fever (RF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) are neglected diseases of marginalized communities.
Jonathan Carapetis AM AM MBBS FRACP FAFPHM PhD FAHMS Executive Director; Co-Head, Strep A Translation; Co-Founder of REACH 08 6319 1000 contact@thekids.org.au Institute Director; Head, Strep A Translation; Co-Founder of REACH Professor Carapetis is
Group A Streptococcus (GAS) M protein is an important virulence factor and potential vaccine antigen, and constitutes the basis for strain typing (emm-typing).
Jonathan Carapetis AM AM MBBS FRACP FAFPHM PhD FAHMS Executive Director; Co-Head, Strep A Translation; Co-Founder of REACH 08 6319 1000 contact@thekids.org.au Institute Director; Head, Strep A Translation; Co-Founder of REACH Professor Carapetis is
Vaccine prevention of GAS infections and their immunological complications has been a goal of researchers for decades.
The spectrum of diseases caused by Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A) ranges from superficial to serious life-threatening invasive infections. We conducted a scoping review of published articles between 1980 and 2021 to synthesize evidence of state transitions across the Strep A disease spectrum. We identified 175 articles reporting 262 distinct observations of Strep A disease state transitions.
Immediate plating of impetigo swabs is the gold standard for bacterial recovery but is rarely feasible in remote regions.
Indigenous children in colonised nations experience high rates of health disparities linked to historical trauma resulting from displacement and dispossession, as well as ongoing systemic racism. Skin infections and their complications are one such health inequity, with the highest global burden described in remote-living Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander (hereafter respectfully referred to as Aboriginal) children. Yet despite increasing urbanisation, little is known about the skin infection burden for urban-living Aboriginal children.
The median number of presentations per child in the first year of life was 21 with multiple reasons for presentation.
For millennia, Aboriginal people's ways of knowing, doing and being were shared through art, song, and dance. Colonisation silenced these ways, affecting loss of self-determination for Aboriginal people. Over the past decade in Australia, hip-hop projects have become culturally appropriate approaches for health promotion.
The desire for an effective vaccine arises from the large burden of disease caused by the bacterium, particularly rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease.
Jonathan Carapetis AM AM MBBS FRACP FAFPHM PhD FAHMS Executive Director; Co-Head, Strep A Translation; Co-Founder of REACH 08 6319 1000 contact@thekids.org.au Institute Director; Head, Strep A Translation; Co-Founder of REACH Professor Carapetis is
In endemic areas, RHD has long been a target of screening programmes that, historically, have relied on cardiac auscultation.
Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is an important cause of heart disease in Indigenous people of northern and central Australia.