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Acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease disproportionately affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, with devastating impacts on morbidity, mortality and community wellbeing. Research suggests that general practitioners and primary care staff perceive insurmountable barriers to improving clinical outcomes, including the need for systemic change outside their scope of practice.
We explore the acceptability of a novel, outreached-based approach to improve primary and primordial prevention of Strep A skin sores, sore throats and acute rheumatic fever in remote Aboriginal communities. A comprehensive prevention program delivered by trained Aboriginal Community Workers was evaluated using approximately fortnightly household surveys about health and housing and clinical records.
Indigenous children and young peoples live with an inequitable burden of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. In this Review, we focus on the epidemiological burden and lived experience of these conditions for Indigenous young peoples in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. We outline the direct and indirect drivers of rheumatic heart disease risk and their mitigation.
Antibiotic consumption can lead to antimicrobial resistance and microbiome imbalance. We sought to estimate global antibiotic consumption for sore throat, and the potential reduction in consumption due to effective vaccination against group A Streptococcus.
The social determinants of health such as access to income, education, housing and healthcare, strongly shape the occurrence of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease at the household, community and national levels.
The Kids Research Institute Australia and Menzies School of Health Research have joined forces with Danila Dilba Health Service to look at improving treatment for RHD.
Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is a multiorgan inflammatory disorder that results from the body's autoimmune response to pharyngitis or a skin infection caused by Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A). Acute rheumatic fever mainly affects those in low- and middle-income nations, as well as in indigenous populations in wealthy nations, where initial Strep A infections may go undetected.
Impetigo or skin sores are estimated to affect >162 million people worldwide. Detailed descriptions of the anatomical location of skin sores are lacking.
The END RHD CRE is producing a costed, step-wise strategy to end rheumatic heart disease (RHD) as public health priority in Australia.
Rheumatic heart disease, a deadly yet entirely preventable heart disease taking the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, is finally on the verge of elimination thanks to new research