Experience of a Wyoming county streptococcal control project.

Figures from Natrona County, Wyoming, during the period 1957-1959 and from the Papago Indian Health Service in Arizona during the years 1970-1982 indicate that a vigorous control program targeted to school children that used throat culturing to detect group A streptococci and to recommend adequate treatment effectively lowered the incidence of first attacks of rheumatic fever. Statistics from the Wyoming Department of Public Health for the years 1972-1983 recorded a consistently lower rate of rheumatic fever in Natrona County, where such a control program was maintained, than for the rest of the state, although the national decline in rheumatic fever incidence makes these figures more difficult to assess. Experience gained in these programs may be valuable for third world countries where rheumatic heart disease is still a major cause of death and disability.