Strep A

Who does it affect?

• Strep A infections affect 750 million people and kill more than 500,000 annually worldwide.
• Each year they cause more than 33 million cases of rheumatic heart disease (RHD), and over 150,000 deaths from flesh-eating bacteria and toxic shock.
• Rheumatic fever typically occurs between ages five to 14 and can progress to RHD in adulthood or lead to stroke and premature death in young adults and adolescents.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have one of the world’s highest rates of Strep A disease. In Australia, 94 per cent of people with RHD are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

Our Strep A research

We are coordinating world efforts to develop a vaccine against Strep A alongside The International Vaccine Institute (IVI). IVI and Murdoch Children's established the Strep A Vaccine Global Consortium (SAVAC), led by The Telethon Kids Institute in Perth, to pool wisdom and resources to fast-track discovery and development. We’re working with the World Health Organization to promote the development of vaccine candidates and will soon begin two in human volunteers. We’ll give vaccines to healthy adults who will have Strep A painted on their throats to see if they develop strep throat.

We’re establishing registers for acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in Victoria to update health professionals on the care and prevention of acute fever and disease. They will support them in providing regular follow-ups of patients and assist relatives in caring for their children. 

We’re involved in developing a plan to end RHD in Australia by 2031 working in a national collaboration with the End Rheumatic Heart Disease Centre of Research Excellence.

After establishing paediatric surveillance for invasive Strep A infection and expanding it to paediatric centres nationwide, we’re driving efforts to create a national surveillance system to improve outcomes and inform vaccine development.

We’re examining the effect of viruses on the growth and transmission of Strep A as recent evidence implicates viruses.

Our vision

Our goal is to eradicate deadly Strep A infections by developing vaccines. This will prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths annually from rheumatic heart disease, toxic shock and other conditions, plus debilitating disease that reduces quality of life causing breathlessness or loss of limbs.