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)