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ORPHA:140896

Severe acute respiratory syndrome

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: SARS · SARS-1

Publications

398,378

Trials

166

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,431

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare pulmonary disease induced by SARS-CoV coronavirus infection, with a reported incubation period varying from 2 to 7 days. Patients present flu-like symptoms, including fever, malaise, myalgia, headache, diarrhoea, and rigors. Dry, nonproductive, cough and dyspnea are frequently reported. Severe cases evolve rapidly, progressing to respiratory distress and failure, requiring intensive care. Mortality rate is 10%. The disease appeared in 2002 in southern China, subsequently spreading in 2003 to 26 countries. Reported human-to-human transmission occurred in Toronto (Canada), Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and Hanoi (Viet Nam).

How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (4)

SARS coronavirus caused disease or disorder · SARS coronavirus disease or disorder · SARS coronavirus infectious disease · acute respiratory coronavirus infection

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    398,378 matched papers (373,476 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    166 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (3 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

398,378

398,378 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

398,378 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

373,476 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 398,378 · MeSH hits: 14,018

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,431

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Chen Y5 papers · 2026

    School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Li J5 papers · 2026

    State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Wang X5 papers · 2026

    State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Liu Z4 papers · 2026

    Chongqing Chemical Industry Vocational College, Chongqing 400020, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Wang H4 papers · 2026

    National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Tracking and Forecasting for Infections Disease, National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Wang Y4 papers · 2026

    State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Alhumaid S3 papers · 2026

    School of Pharmacy, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 7000, Australia. saad.alhumaid@utas.edu.au.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Elhabyan A3 papers · 2025

    Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University, Tanta 31111, Egypt.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Hasen AA3 papers · 2025

    Department of Statistics, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Samara University, Semera, Ethiopia. aragawasfaw5@gmail.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Li Y3 papers · 2026

    State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

166

interventional trials for this specific condition

166 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 3 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 27 July 2026

166 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 99.1th percentile).

low confidence · 99.1th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

166 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

92 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Severe acute respiratory syndrome" OR "SARS-1" OR "SARS coronavirus infectious disease" OR "acute respiratory coronavirus infection"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Severe acute respiratory syndrome" OR "SARS-1" OR "SARS coronavirus infectious disease" OR "acute respiratory coronavirus infection"

Interventional trials matched via: both (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 166 interventional · 92 observational · 2 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: SARS; SARS coronavirus caused disease or disorder; SARS coronavirus disease or disorder

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (398378) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T07:45:10.090Z