[What is happening to acute rheumatic fever?]

Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease of the heart, joints, central nervous system and subcutaneous tissues that develops after a nasopharyngeal infection by one of the group A beta-haemolytic streptococci. The pathogenesis remains an enigma. As the disease has been less florid and some of the more characteristic manifestations less common in developed countries, it has become more difficult to establish the diagnosis on clinical grounds. Rheumatic fever and its sequellae are still active in developing countries. Carditis is a dominant feature of this social disease. Renewed educational efforts concerning this preventable disorder are needed among both physicians and the public.