Julieann Toloa has just been released from hospital knowing that for the next two decades, she will have to have injections to protect her heart.
The 10-year-old is one of 15 family members living in a four-bedroom, one bathroom home in South Auckland.
She was diagnosed with rheumatic fever just over a fortnight ago.
Describing it as a "disease in my heart", she'll be unable to attend school for the next five weeks and needs to be on bed rest until she has a heart scan.
Her case is one of a number of recent ones which are alarming medical authorities.
Since 2019 cases have been decreasing – from 173 in 2019 to just 80 last year – with Covid-19 lockdowns believed to be a factor.
But in a worrying trend, there’s been 31 cases in the first three months of this year.
Infection rates dropped during the Covid-19 pandemic but there are signs they are heading back up. (Source: 1News)
Infectious disease physician Dr Rachel Webb says there’s been a "growing number" of young people coming through Kidzs First children's hospital in Manukau, which is quite a change to the lockdown years.
"Clinicians and public health colleagues are monitoring the situation very carefully," she said.
Those most at risk are Māori and Pasifika children who live in overcrowded conditions like the Toloas, who have taken in extended family members who couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.
While three of the adults work, just having enough money to feed 10 children and five adults is tough.
Julieann's father Tauvela Toloa says the family were told by doctors at the hospital that his daughter was at high risk of getting rheumatic fever because there are so many people living in the one house.
He’s now worried that the other children will contract the illness, and keeping Julieann in a quiet room on bed rest when there are 14 other people in the home is challenging.
He said he hopes the other children in his home will not become another statistic.
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