Management of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease

At 31 December 2024, 1 in 17 First Nations people in the Northern Territory, 5.9%, have been notified as living with RHD and/or a history of ARF. This percentage is much smaller in the other jurisdictions: 1.5% in Queensland, 1.4% in Western Australia, 1% in South Australia, and 0.1% each in New South Wales and Victoria.

At 31 December 2024, there were 11,794 people on the RHD registers living with RHD and/or a history of ARF in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory, or notified in Victoria. Of these:

  • 33% (3,848) of people had ARF only recorded; 33% (3,885) had only RHD recorded; and 35% (4,061) had both ARF and RHD recorded (Supplementary table 2.1)
  • the Northern Territory (4,597) had the highest number of people living with RHD and/or a history of ARF, followed by Queensland (4,262), Western Australia (1,763), South Australia (553), New South Wales (403) and Victoria (69) (Supplementary table 2.2)
  • First Nations people accounted for 80% (9,483) of the diagnoses (Supplementary table 2.2)
  • more females than males were living with RHD and/or a history of ARF (Supplementary table 2.3)
  • the rate of people being managed for ARF and/or RHD increased as remoteness increased (Supplementary table 2.5).

The region of management is recorded for all cases. This is the region where the health service which is responsible for the coordination of their primary health care for ARF or RHD is located. The region of management may differ from where they were diagnosed with or developed ARF or RHD. The regions with the highest rates of management for First Nations people in 2024 were:

  • Barkly (NT), with 8,900 cases per 100,000 population
  • Top End (previously called Rural Darwin) (NT), with 8,254 per 100,000
  • East Arnhem (NT), with 6,833 per 100,000 (Figure 2.1; Supplementary table 2.4).

Figure 2.1: ARF and/or RHD diagnoses among First Nations people, by region of management, at 31 December 2024

The northern half of Australia has higher rates of management for ARF and/or RHD.

The northern half of Australia has higher rates of management for ARF and/or RHD.

Notes

  1. Crude rates (per 100,000 population) are calculated using the number of diagnoses, divided by the regional population. The remoteness populations from New South Wales and South Australia are derived from ABS data. The other regional populations are provided by each state or territory. Due to constraints in the jurisdictions, previous populations were used when new populations were unable to be supplied. The Northern Territory is up-to-date. Queensland and Western Australia use 2023 data as a proxy.
  2. Includes all First Nations people managed for ARF and/or RHD in 2024.
  3. The data excludes any ARF and/or RHD diagnoses nationally that had an unknown or other region of management.

Source: AIHW analysis of National Rheumatic Heart Disease data collection. https://www.aihw.gov.au

Downloadable data tables are available on Data. See Table 2.4.

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