There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
Acute rheumatic fever is caused by an autoimmune response to throat infection with
Streptococcus pyogenes. Cardiac involvement during acute rheumatic fever can result
in rheumatic heart disease, which can cause heart failure and premature mortality.
Poverty and household overcrowding are associated with an increased prevalence of
acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease, both of which remain a public health
problem in many low-income countries. Control efforts are hampered by the scarcity
of accurate data on disease burden, and effective approaches to diagnosis, prevention,
and treatment. The diagnosis of acute rheumatic fever is entirely clinical, without
any laboratory gold standard, and no treatments have been shown to reduce progression
to rheumatic heart disease. Prevention mainly relies on the prompt recognition and
treatment of streptococcal pharyngitis, and avoidance of recurrent infection using
long-term antibiotics. But evidence for the effectiveness of either approach is not
strong. High-quality research is urgently needed to guide efforts to reduce acute
rheumatic fever incidence and prevent progression to rheumatic heart disease.