Many infants suffer heart desease: Expert

Many infants suffer heart desease: Expert

JAKARTA (JP): Up to 10 out of every 1,000 Indonesian infants
suffer congenital heart disease which develops in the first three
months of pregnancy, a medical expert says.

Speaking at his inauguration Wednesday as a professor at
University of Indonesia's medical school, Bambang Mardiyono said
it was wrong to think that coronary heart disease was only
prevalent among adults.

Traditional medicine, birth control pills, X-rays, radiation
and physical and mental trauma were among the factors which could
affect an infant's heart condition, he said.

Heart disease in the left-side of an infant's heart would
cause breathlessness and in the right-side it would cause legs
and other limbs to swell, Bambang said.

Besides congenital heart disease, many children aged between
five and 15 years were at risk because of rheumatic fever which
could lead to rheumatic heart disease, he added.

Bambang explained that rheumatic fever originated from throat
inflammation caused by airborne streptococcus bacteria.

The body produces antibodies to destroy the bacteria. But in
some children, the antibodies combine with antigens and attack
heart tissues permanently damaging the heart valves. The damage
causes breathlessness and fluid accumulation on the legs and
back, often causing swelling.

Streptococcus commonly affected people in unhygienic
environments with poor medical care, he said.

"That's why most sufferers in Indonesia come from the poor who
live in badly contaminated slum areas," said Bambang, a member of
the Indonesian Pediatric Association.

To avoid heart disease, a child with throat infection should
be referred to a doctor immediately, he said.

He said that, if a heart became swollen, the patient had to
take anti-inflammatory medicine, such as corticosteroids. If it
was a serious heart problem, with symptoms including
breathlessness and swollen legs, the patient had to take
medication to strengthen the heart, he said.

Pediatrics should play a more important role in the prevention
of heart disease through information campaigns, he said.

Pediatricians should be able to diagnose heart problems, he
said.

"We still lack pediatric cardiologists in all provinces,
facilities and high-tech heart treatment," Bambang said. (39)