Prevalence Of Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease in School Children in Malwa Region Of MP

Rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease continue to affect millions of people around the world. Children and adolescents of the developing countries are especially susceptible to this disease. To asses the prevalence of Rheumatic Fever /Rheumatic heart disease in an urban area, we do survey of children aged between 5 to 16 years studying in various government schools in Indore district which were selected randomly. Out of 9879 students enrolled in the study 9526 were examined, the percentage of absentees being ten. Revised Jones criterion (1992) was used for the diagnosis of rheumatic fever. Doppler echocardiography is used to confirm the diagnosis of rheumatic heart disease. A total of seven cases of definite rheumatic heart disease (out of 13 suspected cases) were identified giving overall prevalence rate of 0.73 per 1000. Fifty percent rheumatic heart disease cases gave a history suggestive of rheumatic fever. No case of active rheumatic fever could be identified. The study gave lower result than that reported in earlier studies from developing countries but it is similar to that reported from Indore district in 2009. It is concluded that there is some downward trend in rheumatic fever / rheumatic heart disease prevalence but the low prevalence is also due to the use of Doppler echocardiography which has prevented over diagnosis in the present study.