Medical specialists, cultural guides and local medicos are teaming up for a Top End trek to tackle a disease affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the most.
Indigenous Australians are 64 times more likely to have rheumatic heart disease than non-Indigenous, with women and young people most affected.
The disease begins with a common strep A infection - a sore throat or skin sore that can lead to lifelong complications, invasive treatments and premature death if left untreated.
A team of paediatric cardiologists, nurses, sonographers, Aboriginal cultural guides and local health professionals have embarked on a trek across the Big Rivers region of the NT.
The Deadly Heart Trek focuses on education, early diagnosis and treatment of the disease and its precursor acute rheumatic fever, with echocardiographic heart checks and skin checks performed by health professionals.
"It's a national shame that this disease has been eradicated in every developed country except Australia," the trek's cultural lead Aunty Vicki Wade told AAP.
Now in its fifth year, the trek will visit nine communities before finishing on August 15.
While it is philanthropically funded, the trek's founder and pediatric cardiologist Bo Remenyi says more government is needed to eradicate the disease.
One in five Aboriginal controlled health organisations are funded for rheumatic heart disease, according to Dr Remenyi.
"Medically, technically we know what to do - we need to address housing ... we need to ensure medical centres are funded and staffed appropriately to address really basic sore throats, school sores, because that's what prevents rheumatic fever," she said.
Ms Wade, a senior Noongar woman, said it is also important to invest in Aboriginal communities, who know what is best in the places they live.
"Aboriginal leadership is really important. Aboriginal people in community know if they can do things, what needs to be done and how to do it," she said.
More than 3900 children have been screened and 107 new cases of rheumatic heart disease treated in visits to 37 communities across Queensland and the NT, according to the Snow Foundation which funds and supports the trek.
The trek was created in response to the voices of those with lived experience of the ailments and the urgent need for better access to services, education and specialist medical care and equipment, foundation chief executive Georgina Byron said.
