Always check sore throat, mum warns

Te Aroha Teriaki (C) with her children Tama (15) and Mariu Pritchard (R) at the Pukaki Marae. Photo / Paul Estcourt

When Te Aroha Teriaki's five children got sore throats, they were given remedies such as a lemon and honey drink.

But after two of her children developed rheumatic fever, a condition that comes from a particular kind of sore throat, her message to parents about their children couldn't be clearer: "Every time you get a sore throat, get it checked."

A sore throat caused by group A streptococcal bacteria can lead to rheumatic fever, and 30 per cent of people with the condition will end up with permanent heart damage. Each year 150 people die from rheumatic heart disease.

Mrs Teriaki's 15-year-old whangai son Tama, her youngest child, was diagnosed at age 6 when he became extremely lethargic and eventually couldn't walk. He spent four months in the Starship children's Hospital and recovered from the acute illness but now has a leaking heart valve.

He has to have monthly penicillin injections until he is 30, to protect him against re-infection with the bacteria which causes rheumatic fever, a reaction of the immune system.

Mrs Teriaki's eldest, 36-year-old Mariu Pritchard - who was brought up by her mother's mother - was diagnosed with rheumatic fever when she was 10.

She had pains in her legs, arms and shoulders until, like Tama, she couldn't walk. She spent several weeks recovering in the Starship's predecessor, the Princess Mary Hospital. She had penicillin injections until she turned 21.

"I used to go and have heart murmur checks and they were all clear. As far as I'm aware, there's no heart effects."

When she was young, a sore throat was generally considered "just a sore throat". But now, like her mother, she is acutely aware of the risks of rheumatic fever and always takes her children, aged 4 and 8, to the doctor if they have a sore throat.

Health experts say it reflects badly on New Zealand that it has one of the developed world's highest rates of what is now considered a Third World disease.

Rheumatic fever is associated with poverty and household overcrowding. Among young people, it occurs in Maori at a rate 23 times higher than in Europeans, and in Pacific Islanders nearly 50 times higher.

"It's an indicator of child health and how much we care for our children in our community," the National Heart Foundation's medical director, Professor Norman Sharpe, said yesterday.

The foundation sponsored the writing of medical guidelines on how to manage sore throats and rheumatic fever, which led to recommendations to the Health Ministry including the establishment of sore-throat clinics at primary and intermediate schools in high-risk areas.

Professor Diana Lennon, an Auckland University paediatrician, said research on strep throat treatment programmes, including trial school-based clinics in South Auckland, showed they were likely to reduce the incidence of rheumatic fever by 60 per cent.

"Our advice to the ministry is that we could eliminate this by 2020."

RHEUMATIC FEVER

* Sore throats can be caused by viruses or group A streptococcal bacteria.

* "Strep throat" leads to rheumatic fever in some cases.

* Rheumatic fever causes joint pain and, in some people, damaged heart valves.

* A Kaitaia study this week found nearly 1 per cent of children tested had previously undiagnosed rheumatic heart disease.

* 150 adults a year die from rheumatic heart disease they contracted as a child.

* No vaccine available for strep throat, but can be treated by antibiotics.

* Parents are urged to have their children's sore throats checked by a doctor, especially if they are Maori or Pacific or live in poorer areas of the North Island.