Take Heart Public Health Service Announcement: Maningrida

Added by RHDAustralia

Description This is a health warning.

Right now, many of our children and young people in our community are getting rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease.

This sickness is serious. This sickness can damage our heart.
Watch out for:

1. Painful joints (like ankle, knees, hip or elbow, wrist, shoulder) and
2. Fever (feeling cold and shivering but when you feel their forehead they feel very hot to touch).

Bring these children and young people to the clinic so we can give them medicine to stop this sickness and to prevent heart damage.
What causes rheumatic fever?

Rheumatic fever starts with a sore throat and sometimes with sores on our skin.

A germ called “strep” lives in the throat and on skin sores.
When you see pus in skin sores, it means that strep germs are camping there. They have found a good camping place to grow and multiply.

Or, if we have a sore throat, the same germ can live there.
These “strep” germs get inside our children’s body and damage their heart.

Medicine kill these strep germs and prevent heart damage.

For people who already have rheumatic fever, they need Penicillin needle every 3 or 4 weeks.

This medicine will stop them getting rheumatic fever again and prevents heart damage.

The medicine only stays in our body for 3 weeks.

It goes all around our body and protects us from the ‘strep’ germ.
After 3 weeks, the medicine is used up/finished.

Then we need to give another injection.

People with rheumatic fever need Penicillin in their body all the time to kill any strep germs and prevent heart damage.