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Image: Cardiologists from project pilot sites travelled to Manila for training in the newly updated World Heart Federation’s Echocardiography Guidelines and POCUS before returning to their respective provinces to train non-experts health providers to perform basic echocardiograms.

Reach, in partnership with the World Heart Federation, is supporting the Philippines Heart Association to implement a project entitled Rheumatic Fever Screening Among School Children using Cardiac Point of Care Ultrasound (Cardiac POCUS) by Local Health Workers. Funded by the Philips Foundation, this project is being implemented at the primary health care level in four locations across the Philippines including Quezon City, Bonifacio Global City, Sorsogon City and Iloilo in Western Visayas.

During the two-year project the Philippines Heart Association will: train more than sixty primary health personnel in the use of Cardiac POCUS; educate approximately 300 health personnel in primary prevention, rheumatic fever (RF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD), and qualify health facilities as accredited Philhealth service providers. This accreditation will enable facilities to provide government-subsidised benzathine penicillin plus annual review including echocardiogram to RF and RHD patients at no cost.  Twenty hand-held ultrasound devices are being donated by the Philips Foundation which will be located at primary care facilities ensuring ongoing access to diagnostic services for communities. Additionally, the project will see four newly trained provincial teams screen 6,000 school-aged children. The results from these screenings, along with published data, will help in understanding the burden of RHD among this at-risk group.   

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