Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease Saggi Manpreet1,*, Kalia Raman2 1Associate Professor, MSN, Saraswati Nursing Institute, Dhianpura 2Principal, Saraswati Nursing Institute, Dhianpura *Corresponding Author Email: manpreetsaggi7@gmail.com
Online published on 10 August, 2020. Abstract Rheumatic heart disease remains a major public health problem in many parts of the world. Rheumatic heart disease (RHD), the only long-term consequence of acute rheumatic fever (ARF), continues unabated among middle-income and low-income countries and in some indigenous communities of the industrialized world. At least 15 million people are estimated to be affected by RHD worldwide. Globally, india contributes nearly 25–50% of newly diagnosed cases, dealths, hospitalization and burden of RHD. The American Heart Association (AHA) has well-established clinical diagnostic criteria for ARF—the Jones criteriaand, with some modifications and revisions, these guidelines have been accepted and utilized worldwide. The standardized criteria aim to permit rapid and consistent identification of individuals with ARF and RHD hence allow enrolment into secondary prophylaxis programs. However, important unanswered questions remain about the importance of subclinical disease (RHD on echocardiography without a clinical pathological murmur), and about the practicalities of implementing screening programs. These standardized criteria will help enable new studies to be designed to evaluate the role of echocardiographic screening in RHD control. Top Keywords Rheumatic Heart Disease, Rheumatic fever. Top |