What Is Rheumatic Fever?
Reviewed: Dr. Mera
2. Who Gets It?
Rheumatic fever can affect people of any age. However, it most commonly affects children from the ages of 5 to 15 years old. This is partly because children tend to stay close together in fairly large groups when at school or home, enabling streptococcal infections to spread easier.
Rheumatic fever is quite rare in developed countries. This is because of good hygiene practices and ready access to medical care and primary prevention. Where these are not prevalent, strep infections are more likely to be missed and go untreated. Thus, people living in developing nations are at greater risk of developing rheumatic fever.
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