Epidemiologist Jonathan Karapetis, who was described as one of the 100 “brightest Australians” is the new director of the Telethon Institute of Child Health Research, based in Perth and involved in researches related to child health.
For the past six years Dr. Karapetis was director of the Menzies School of Health Research, where he founded the first program for the control of rheumatic heart disease in Australia.
His aim is to find ways, through research to limit or even to eliminate rheumatic heart disease mainly affecting the Aborigines and the natives of the islands around Australia.
“In industrial countries, only 1% of all children have rheumatic fever in contrast to natives, who reach 4%,” he said, “In some countries, 10 % of the children die before the age of five, and almost most of these deaths could have been avoided.”
Especially for Aborigines, he found that their health was the worst among developing countries. “Rheumatic heart disease affects 30,000 million people worldwide and 300,000 to 500,000 die annually,”he noted.
Karapetis was born in Port Pirie, South Australia in 1961, to Greek parents. His father, who was an engineer, used to travel a lot to Tanzania and Uganda, where Karapetis came very early in contact with the tragic health conditions which deeply affected him.
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