Valvular Heart Disease in a Young Israeli Ethiopian Immigrant Population From the Gondar Region With Implications for Rheumatic Heart Disease

Abstract

Background: Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) among Ethiopian school children was recently found to be 1.4%. Immigration of the Jewish population from the Gondar region to Israel created an opportunity for further enquiry. Methods: A cross-sectional study of the cardiac status of 113,671 adolescent recruits aged 16–19 years from the northern district of Israel who completed the medical profiling process over a 22-year period. Results: 140 recruits had a history of rheumatic fever (0.12%), although none from an Ethiopian origin (n = 1,719). The prevalence of valvular heart disease clinically and confirmed echocardiographically in Ethiopian recruits was not different from the total population (0.8..