Rheumatic Fever

A Change of Heart Disease

A persistent—yet preventable—condition finally gets some attention

BY ELIE DOLGIN

Bongani Mayosi / University of Cape Town

Nine years ago, Bongani Mayosi was performing ultrasound scans of children’s hearts at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, when he noticed that every second or third patient he saw had an inflammatory disease called rheumatic fever (RF). The prevalence of the disease “shocked me to no end and led me to believe that we ought to do something about it,” says Mayosi, now a professor at the University of Cape Town./.../