Children, Adolescents and youth

May 2007

Children and heart disease
Congenital heart disease is present at birth and its consequences can be fatal. The World Heart Federation is focused primarily on acquired disease, which develops sometime during childhood and includes diseases such as rheumatic heart disease, cardiomyopathy, bacterial endocarditis, pericarditis, Kawasaki disease, and Chagas disease.

Rheumatic heart disease

• Rheumatic heart disease is the most common acquired heart disease.¹
• Worldwide, about 8 million children are affected by rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease.²
• Rheumatic heart disease is a consequence of rheumatic fever, which leads to damage of the heart valves, which can progress to heart failure, atrial fibrillation, embolic stroke and death.²
• Rheumatic fever is caused by an untreated bacterial throat infection.²
• Regular long-term penicillin treatment can halt rheumatic fever becoming rheumatic heart disease and can prevent disease progression where heart valves are already damaged.²
• Up to 1% of all schoolchildren in Africa, Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean region, and Latin America show signs of the disease.²
• The worst affected areas are the Pacific island nations³ and sub-Saharan Africa, where about 500,000 children are affected by rheumatic heart disease.⁴  
• Lack of awareness about treatment and resource shortages are barriers to disease control in the developing world.²
• Affected children may need open heart surgery to repair or replace heart valves, which is costly for low and middle income countries.¹
• Without surgery the quality of life is extremely poor.⁵

Chagas disease

• Chagas disease is found only in Latin America and is a parasite borne infection.⁶
• Chagas disease primarily affects low-income people living in rural areas as the parasite lives on insects that reside in cracks and crevices of poor-quality houses.⁶
• About 13 million people are affected by Chagas disease.⁷  
• Chagas disease leads to unexpected death in 37.5% of patients and 58% develop heart failure and die.⁸
• The chronic symptoms of Chagas disease include an enlarged heart, altered heart rate or rhythm, heart failure, or cardiac arrest.

Kawasaki disease

• Kawasaki disease is a childhood disease characterised by an acute inflammation of the blood vessels, especially the coronary arteries.⁹
• Its cause is unknown but may be some kind of infection.⁹
• Kawasaki disease is most common in Japan¹⁰, but is the leading cause of acquired heart disease among children in developed countries.⁹

Stroke

• The incidence of stroke in children is the same as brain tumours: 2-3/100,000.¹¹
• The most common cause of stroke in children is sickle cell disease.¹²