Acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in Australia, 2022

In 2022, 92 people diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease (RHD) and living in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, or the Northern Territory had surgery. Of those, 73 people were First Nations people who underwent 73 surgical events (Supplementary table 3.13).

Of these First Nations people:

• all 73 had only one surgical event in 2022 (Supplementary table 3.14)
• 59% were female (Supplementary table 3.15)
• on average, people had their first surgery 2.4 years after RHD diagnosis (Supplementary table 3.16).

In 2022, of the 73 surgical events among First Nations people:

• most surgical events occurred among those aged 15–24, who had 20 surgical events
• no children aged under 5 years had surgery for RHD (Figure 3.8; Supplementary table 3.15).

 Figure 3.8: Surgical events among First Nations people with RHD, by age group, 2022

Chart: AIHW. Source: AIHW analysis of National Rheumatic Heart Disease Data Collection.