Acute rheumatic fever: 57 per cent of all cases diagnosed among First Nations people are in the NT
Shameful new figures show the NT continues to be the Australian capital of a third-world disease that overwhelmingly affects First Nations people, with more diagnoses than all other states and territories combined.
Northern Territory
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The Northern Territory saw more diagnoses in 2022 of acute rheumatic fever, the precursor to life-threatening rheumatic heart disease, among First Nations people than all other states and territories combined, shameful new figures show.
Acute rheumatic fever, caused by untreated streptococcus bacterial infections, typically those of the throat or skin, such as scabies or impetigo, has a high rate of recurrence, leading to its more serious evolution into rheumatic heart disease.
RHD, which damages the heart valves, kills more than 288,000 worldwide annually, according to the World Health Organisation.
In Australia, First Nations people are particularly susceptible to acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease, as the infections that lead to their development are rife in overcrowded, remote housing.
And nowhere are they more susceptible than in the Northern Territory, where 57 per cent of Indigenous people live in overcrowded dwellings.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s recently released ‘Acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in Australia, 2022’ report, the sixth in an ongoing series, shows the Territory is continuing to lose its battle.
Of the 497 acute rheumatic fever diagnoses in 2022 among First Nations people residing in the five jurisdictions that collect data, 284 of them – about 57 per cent – were located in the NT.
Just 7.75 per cent of the Australian population who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander reside in the Territory, according to census data – an elephantine over-representation.
While Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT are not represented within the National Rheumatic Heart Disease data collection, in at least Victoria’s case diagnoses were negligible: a 2022 study found First Nations people in that jurisdiction presented with acute rheumatic fever at a rate of 3.8 per 100,000.
By contrast, the Territory’s rate among First Nations people in 2022 was 359.5 per 100,000.
The jurisdiction with the next highest rate, Western Australia, saw an incidence rate of just 69.5 per 100,000 First Nations people.
No data is available for Tasmania or the ACT.
Earlier this month, a multidisciplinary team of medical professionals operating under the auspice of the Deadly Heart Trek returned to Alice Springs for the second time in as many years amid worrying signs acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease cases were surging in the Red Centre capital.
Dr Gavin Wheaton, a pediatric cardiologist at Adelaide’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital involved in the Deadly Heart Trek since its inception in 2021, previously told the NT News acute rheumatic fever was the ultimate “disease of disadvantage”.
“The disease has abated and largely disappeared in affluent communities, but in Australia and New Zealand, that has not been the case for the Indigenous populations,” he said.
“We have some of the highest recorded incidences of rheumatic fever in the world.”
NT Health runs a rheumatic heart disease program, with headquarters in Darwin and Alice Springs.
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