Teaching Rheumatic Heart Disease Screening

Our team is in Soddo Ethiopia to initiated a program for mass screening of young people for early signs of rheumatic heart disease. As we have mentioned before, if it is found early, the progression can be stopped with monthly penicillin shots. We had our first practice screening this past Saturday. Dr. Michelle Yates (in blue) invited the hospital staff to bring their children to be screened. The trainees took turns doing the ECHO and all looking and interpreting the results. We scanned about 80 kids and found 6 positives. That's 6 kids who can now go on penicillin and not suffer the debilitating effects of rheumatic heart disease.