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Chronic disease remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. Regular structured, comprehensive health assessments are available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as annual health checks funded through the Medicare Benefits Schedule.
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is an important and preventable cause of morbidity and mortality among children and young adults in low-income and middle-income countries, as well as among certain at-risk populations living in high-income countries. The 2012 World Heart Federation echocardiographic criteria provided a standardized approach for the identification of RHD and facilitated an improvement in early case detection.
Group A Streptococcus causes a wide range of diseases from relatively mild infections including pharyngitis to more severe illnesses such as invasive diseases and rheumatic heart disease (RHD). Our aim is to estimate the cost-effectiveness of a hypothetical Strep A vaccine on multiple disease manifestations at the global-level.
Group A Streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis is an important precursor infection to severe complications including rheumatic fever and invasive GAS. Rapid molecular point of care testing (POCT) for GAS infection has advantages over traditional microbiological culture, especially in settings with limited or absent laboratory infrastructure and where GAS complications predominate.
Benzathine penicillin G availability should be addressed and African health workers’ knowledge and practices need to be augmented
Few children and adolescents receiving BPG as secondary prophylaxis will achieve concentrations >0.02 mg/L for the majority of the time between injections
This study will identify the incidence of true Group A Streptococcal pharyngitis and serological responses to Group A Streptococcal GAS skin infections
The WHF echocardiographic criteria enable reproducible categorisation of echocardiograms as definite RHD versus no or borderline RHD
Based in 'both-way learning', the aim of this study was to co-design, implement and evaluate community-based participatory action research to achieve this vision
We outline a series of research initiatives to improve identification of RHD in administrative data thereby contributing to monitoring the RHD burden globally