Amidst a staggering 5000 reported cases of rheumatic heart diseases, the Ministry of Health stresses the critical role of community outreach and screening programs.

RHD Divisional Coordinator Poonam Pal highlights a significant uptick in case identification during this year’s outreach initiatives.

She adds RHD is the primary cause of death for those aged five to twenty-nine.

Pal says they are currently grappling with the challenge of meeting the extensive demand for outreach due to equipment and workforce constraints.

“So the more screening we do, we definitely have more numbers that we pick up as well. So as I’m saying, at least one child in a classroom is picked up with rheumatic heart disease in Fiji. And just looking back at how many schools we have and how many streams of each class we have, that’s quite an alarming figure.”

Pal highlights the importance of having well-trained expertise to effectively manage the escalating demand.

“So with the ministry, we are trying to train our nurses, our community health workers. We’re trying to make sure that we are also tapping onto community health workers so that we can bridge the gap between communities and the health system as well.”

The Health Ministry emphasizes the urgency of allocating more resources and efforts to combat rheumatic heart diseases within the community.