What is Burden of Rheumatic Heart Diseases?

Although in the twenty-first century RHD has been eradicated in western countries, in India and other developing countries it continues to thrive and cause a high mortality among children and young adults. The most important source for the prevalence of RHD is the school surveys and the last schools study done in primary school children 6-10 years of age has shown a prevalence of RHD of 3.91 1000 and that is unacceptably high. Further proof of the continuing large reservoir of RHD cases is the large number of patients in their teens and twenties coming in for the (relatively) new modality of balloon mitral valvotomy. Paediatric clinics in large hospitals from various parts of India have reported several cases with acute manifestations of RI-ID such as carditis, chorea, nodules and polyarthritis.