New Global Partnerships, RHD Action, Calls on World Leaders to End Rheumatic Heart Disease

08 October 2015

(L-R) Leith Greenslade, Kevin Rudd, Jacob Gayle at RHD Action Launch

RHD Action, the global movement to reduce the burden of RHD in vulnerable populations of all ages throughout the world was launched in New York on September 29th. Coinciding with World Heart Day and the United Nations General Assembly the launch highlighted the human toll of this preventable disease, the impact on maternal mortality and the opportunity for prevention.

"Rheumatic heart disease is an injustice we know how to end" said former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was diagnosed with RHD as a child and had subsequent heart valve surgery. "It's time for governments to put this silent emergency at the top of the global health agenda. I'm very pleased that RHD Action will lead the global movement to consign RHD to the history books."

Other speakers at the launch of RHD Action included keynote speaker Madame Toyin Ojora-Saraki, founder and President of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa; GBD expert Greg Roth; Assistant Professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), representatives from UNICEF and Save the Children as well as people living and working with RHD from around the world.

Further details are available here