Prevalence of Heart Disease in School Children of Islamabad

Abstract

Material and Methods:

Islamabad is the new capital of Pakistan and is about 18 years old with the population of 150,000. It is situated 330 36’N, 72-50’S and  73°-24’ East of Greenwhich at the foot of Margala Hills at the altitude of 503-610 meters. The temperature varies from a maximum of 42°C in Summer to a minimum average of 3.4°C in Winter. Aortic systolic murmur was deemed signif icant if it was graded 3 or above and was conducted to the neck and the aortic component of the second sound was relatively soft.

Results:
A Total number of 15,100 children were examined out of’ which 8,607 (57%) children were male and 6,943 (43%) children were female.

The age distribution of the cases is given as below:—
Age 05—-07 08—- 10 11 - 13 14—15 Total Number
of cases   12       14        17        7        50
2% complained of undue dyspnoca on exertion. 60% children belonged to the families with monthly income of less than Rs. 625/-. 17.2% of the Throat Swab Cultures were positive for Beta Hemolytic group A Streptococci and A.S.O. Titre were 200 units and above in 29% of the cases.

Discussion:

Our figures for rheumatic heart disease(1 . 52) per thousand are comparable to those of Abbasi et al., from Karachi, Miller et al., from USA and Stuckey et al., from Australia. Otherreports from Pakistan, India, Iran, Morocco, Egypt 23 show a very high prevalence rate which may be due to selection of slums and overcrowded areas in the survey.

Acknowledgements:
This paper was previewed by Dr. T. Strasser of W.1-1.O. Geneva for which we are most grateful. We wish to acknowledge our thanks National Science Foundation Islamabad which provided us the funds to carry out this study.