Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) affects up to 3% of school children in Timor-Leste – almost one in every classroom. Many of those children will develop heart failure and die in adolescence or early adulthood, particularly during pregnancy.
Can you imagine the devastation caused by this disease in thousands of families in Timor-Leste?
Rheumatic Heart Disease in Timor-Leste
Despite modelling data that suggests that RHD is one of the top 25 causes of years of life lost in Timor-Leste.
A formal national programme does not currently exist
%
of children have signs of rheumatic heart disease
%
remission rate with regular penicillin injections to the age of 25
We want to find and treat the children of Timor Leste who are at most at risk.
Together we will banish rheumatic heart disease from Timor-Leste.
How Maluk Timor is helping prevent Rheumatic Heart Disease
1. Working with our partners
We are informing communities and clinicians about rheumatic heart disease and what is required to prevent the onset of the disease.
Defence against RHD starts with simple steps such as basic hygiene and treatment of throat and skin infections.
2. A New Screening Program
We’ve developed a screening program that can identify children with the early signs of rheumatic heart disease, before they even realise anything is wrong.
The program is an extension of the Pedrino Program, run by the Menzies instute, which is tackling the disease in indigenous Australian communities.
Maluk Timor staff and volunteers working with Menzies Health in Darwin training the team on how to detect rheumatic heart disease using mobile echocardiogram machine.
3. A program of penicillin
We’ve built a program of delivering monthly penicillin treatment to affected children to prevent the progression of the disease, to keep the children healthy into a normal adulthood and full life expectancy.
We identify the severest cases and arrange for life-saving surgical treatment in Australia.
This whole program is being built as a model for the Timorese government to adopt and expand to cover the entire nation.
‘Some of the Student’s Patient from Ermera Letefoho Timor Leste, think that Rheumatic Heart Disease is a new disease for us in Timor Leste. We never heard and know that these country has these disease. With the information from Australian doctors we now know of these disease, we think the screening very important for us in Ermera School’s because there’s good reason of way to detect the proportion of student’s affecting by RHD in Ermera, secondly we would like to express our whole thanks to the donors and doctors from Australia for penicillin support that been safe our life in Timor Leste.’
Latest news from our rheumatic heart disease program
Australians Volunteers International annual report – Maluk Timor team on the front 🙂
We made it the front page of the Australians Volunteers International annual report - Jess and Nencia on the cover, who worked with Rheumatic Heart Disease and Women's Health and Social Care...read more
Rheumatic Heart Disease school based prevention program
Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) is a life-threatening heart condition which results from damage to heart valves caused by one or several episodes of rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever can occur at any age, but usually occurs in children ages 5 to 15 years old. RHD...
Becoming an expert in Rheumatic heart disease enables kids to grow old
My Name is Juliana dos Santos Sarmentu, I am a 29-year-old nurse from the city of Bacau, Timor-Leste. I studied nursing in Indonesia and then returned to live in Dili. I joined the Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) team at Maluk Timor in October 2019. I’m so glad to have...
On ‘world heart day’ – we remember – RHD is preventable!
What are you doing to celebrate world heart day? For many of us, world heart day means remembering to set exercise goals, eat more healthily or plan to quit smoking- we hope you also do something to protect your heart today! For the RHD team at Maluk Timor, world...
Australian Volunteers International (AVI’s) doing good
The below story appeared on the Australian Embassy's facebook page about 'OUR JESS' - one of the marvellous Australians currently working as an AVI....link About Jess Harries.... Australia in Timor-Leste Health NGO Maluk Timor has played an important role in...
Voluntary Board member Dr Josh presenting – BE INSPIRED
Dr Josh presenting at DFTB conference.............. Don’t Forget The Bubbles was conceived as a way of sharing our collective knowledge. What started out as four enthusiastic players (Tessa, Ben, Henry and Andy) has grown so much bigger. With over 70 authors and more...
Timor Leste: healing hearts and minds
More efforts are being poured in healing Timor Leste’s most crippling disease: rheumatic heart disease.
Fighting RHD: 5 cardiologists: 700 students
On Monday we found ourselves set up for screening at the school in Cailaco with 4 echocardiography machines and 5 cardiologists and over 700 students to scan in 2.5 days. We faced a big challenge figuring out who was going to make the long and difficult drive back to...
Up to 10,000 kids with RHD in Timor Leste
ABC NEWS – Studies have shown that up to 10,000 kids have rheumatic heart disease in Timor Leste, urging professionals to take action.
Maluk Timor and ETHF – together against RHD
Maluk Timor and the East Timor Hearts Fund are continuously working together to develop the Rheumatic Heart Disease program.