New Zealand charity Cure Kids is welcoming the Government’s $10 million pledge to help fund research for a strep throat vaccine, which could prevent rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease.

The government funding follows Cure Kids’ commitment in 2020 of more than $3 million over three years to help eradicate the “disease of poverty”, with the funding enabling six research projects.

One of the projects funded by Cure Kids is run by Dr Jacelyn Loh, a senior research fellow and member of the Infection and Immunity cluster in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Pathology at the University of Auckland, who is working to increase the effectiveness of a vaccine already shown to protect against Strep A infection in animals.

Rheumatic fever is an auto-immune disease which occurs in response to an infection of the skin or throat with Group A Streptococcus (e.g. strep throat). Rheumatic heart disease, or RHD, refers to the damage which this inflammation causes to the heart valves.

Approximately 600 to 800 people are admitted to hospital each year in NZ with underlying rheumatic heart disease. Of these, 150 to 200 die. The Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor has estimated that a new vaccine could reduce the number of deaths and the harm caused to hundreds of children every year.

Frances Benge, CEO of Cure Kids, New Zealand’s largest charitable funder of child health research, has welcomed the Government’s funding pledge.

“We are thrilled that the Government is pledging their support for vaccines, laboratory testing, and pathogen surveillance, with the aim of eventually eradicating this devastating illness,” she says.

“Cure Kids has been funding research into the development of a vaccine to prevent, treat, and ultimately, stomp out rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease.”