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Source: ONE News -
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There are calls for government and community action to save the hearts, and future lives, of hundreds of New Zealand children.
Rheumatic fever has been virtually eradicated overseas, but new research shows rates of the third world disease are still climbing in New Zealand at an alarming rate.
Twelve year old Isaako Sapatu-Bell was diagnosed with rheumatic fever, after originally having a mild sore throat.
"It all went away and I thought nothing of it," says his mother Ethelina.
But when Isaako became lethargic, he was taken to hospital.
"While they were walking in from the carpark at Starship he collapsed in the carpark," says Ethelina Sapatu-Bell.
What followed was two months in hospital with Isaako hooked up to wires and monitors and a diagnosis of rheumatic fever, caused by a strep throat.
He is now wheelchair-bound and needs a heart operation.
There is going to be a question over that valve, that child and what they can do for the rest of their life," says Starship Paediatric Cardiologist Dr Nigel Wilson.
Every year 500 patients are admitted to New Zealand hospitals suffering from chronic rheumatic fever.
The damage to the heart valves it causes can be lethal.
Incredibly, 150 New Zealanders' in their thirties and forties still die every year from rheumatic heart disease and it's all preventable.
Rheumatic fever is probably New Zealand's most important infectious disease in terms of premature deaths and years of life lost," says University of Otago Associate Professor Michael Baker.
New University of Otago research shows this victorian disease of poverty and overcrowding is on the rise, specifically amongst Maori and Pacific children.
Their rates are now 10 to 20 times that of other ethnic groups.
"You would really have to wonder, if this was a disease in Remuera or in Fendalton or Karori and that it was 2.5% of the children there who had rheumatic heart disease, whether a lot more money would have been poured in," says Wilson.
One programme is starting to make inroads.
Starship and Kidsfirst hospitals have a pilot study underway in seven South Auckland schools. A portable laptop echocardiogram machine has checked the heart valves of over 1,000 intermediate age children.
Around 40 have been picked up with undiagnosed heart damage.
While long-term penicillin will prevent a recurrence, many may still face surgery.
It is hoped more funding will enable the programme to be expanded.
"This is crying out for a highly-organised nationally-integrated programme," says Baker.
There is a call too for GPs to perform more throat swabs to diagnose children in high risk areas.
"Those sore throats should be taken seriously, sore throats matter," says Wilson.
Ethelina never knew that heart conditions and rheumatic fever came from sore throats.
"That was something you just don't hear about," says Ethelina.
She now wishes she had been warned.
