Rheumatic heart disease in Indigenous children could be spread by throat bacteria, researchers find

The strep A bacterium causes the chronic and severe rheumatic heart disease, which in Australia is only found in remote Indigenous communities. Photograph: Dragon Claws/Alamy

An entirely preventable condition leaving Indigenous children with severe and irreversible heart damage may be spread due to a reservoir of bacteria in the throat that causes no symptoms in the host, Australian researchers have found.

It is a discovery that will likely have implications for rheumatic heart disease (RHD) prevention and vaccine development, infectious diseases physicians say.