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Acute rheumatic fever 

Acute rheumatic fever
Chapter:
Acute rheumatic fever
Author(s):

Jonathan R. Carapetis

DOI:
10.1093/med/9780198746690.003.0357
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date: 02 March 2021

Acute rheumatic fever is an immunologically mediated multisystem disease induced by recent infection with group A streptococcus. About 5% of people have the potential to develop acute rheumatic fever after infection by a strain of streptococcus with propensity to cause the condition. Most cases (97%) occur in low-income and some middle-income countries, with indigenous populations in some affluent countries also affected. Children aged 5–15 years are most commonly affected, and rheumatic heart disease remains the most common acquired heart disease of childhood in the world. Most medical practitioners in industrialized countries will rarely, if ever, see a case. However, the dramatic decline in incidence of acute rheumatic fever in industrialized countries during the second half of the 20th century was not replicated in many developing countries, or among some indigenous and other populations living in poverty in industrialized countries.

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