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ORPHA:247257

Inhalational anthrax

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Inhalation anthrax disease · Pulmonary anthrax · Respiratory anthrax · Respiratory anthrax disease

Publications

1,512

Trials

8

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

980

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Inhalational anthrax is a rare acute systemic infection caused by the inhalation of Bacillus anthracis spores (e.g. through infected animal products, bioterrorism) and characterized by an initial stage where patients present with non specific symptoms (fever, cough, chills, fatigue) that is followed by an acute phase during which hemorrhagic mediastinitis occurs that can progress into meningitis, gastrointestinal involvement, and refractory shock, that can be fatal, if left untreated.

How rare: <1 / 1 000 000 — fewer than one in a million. In a city the size of Kolkata, that might mean on the order of fifteen people.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

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

Additional Mondo synonyms (4)

inhalation anthrax disease · pulmonary anthrax · respiratory anthrax · respiratory anthrax disease

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.”

4/6 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

    1,512 matched papers (467 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    12 HPO annotations (e.g. Abnormal sweat gland morphology; Fatigue; Vomiting) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationPresent

    2 FDA · 3 EMA designations (1 FDA orphan-indication approval) — e.g. cethromycin Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    8 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (1 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)

12

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0016595

  • Abnormal sweat gland morphology
  • Fatigue
  • Vomiting
  • Hypotension
  • Sepsis

Showing 5 of 12 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

5

Designations · 1 with FDA orphan-indication approval

  • FDA cethromycinInhalation anthrax · 2007-02-28 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication
  • EMA raxibacumabTreatment of inhalation anthrax disease · 15/10/2014 · PositiveEMA designation
  • FDA anthrax immune globulin (human)Inhalational anthrax · 2008-07-29
  • EMA human anthrax immunoglobulinTreatment of inhalation anthrax disease · 18/11/2009 · WithdrawnEMA designation
  • EMA human anthrax monoclonal antibodyTreatment of inhalation anthrax disease · 15/04/2011 · WithdrawnEMA designation

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

No drugs or clinical candidates returned for this Mondo ID on Open Targets.

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

1,512

1,512 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

1,512 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

467 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 1,487 · MeSH hits: 31

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

980

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
    Tournier JN10 papers · 2024

    Pathogénie des Toxi-Infections Bactériennes, Institut Pasteur , Paris, France ; Unité Interactions Hôte-Agents Pathogènes, Institut de Recherche Biomédicale des Armées , Brétigny-sur-Orge, France ; Ecole du Val-de-Grâce , Paris, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Skiadopoulos MH6 papers · 2022

    Emergent BioSolutions Inc., 300 Professional Drive, Gaithersburg, MD 20879, USA. Electronic address: SkiadopoulosM@ebsi.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Cote CK5 papers · 2026

    Bacteriology Division, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, Fort Detrick, Maryland 21702, United States.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Goossens PL5 papers · 2024

    Pathogénie des Toxi-Infections Bactériennes, Institut Pasteur , Paris, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Ionin B5 papers · 2021

    Emergent BioSolutions Inc., 300 Professional Drive, Gaithersburg, MD 20879, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Savransky V5 papers · 2021

    Emergent BioSolutions Inc., 300 Professional Drive, Gaithersburg, MD 20879, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Stark GV5 papers · 2020

    Battelle, Columbus, OH 43201, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Henning LN4 papers · 2018

    Battelle, West Jefferson, Ohio, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Klimko CP4 papers · 2026

    Bacteriology Division, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, Fort Detrick, Maryland 21702, United States.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Levy H4 papers · 2024

    Department of Infectious Diseases, Israel Institute for Biological Research, Ness Ziona, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

8

interventional trials for this specific condition

8 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 1 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 11 September 2026

8 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 91.5th percentile).

low confidence · 91.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

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

Observational and natural-history studies

1 observational study matches 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

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 0 · after dedupe 0 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 0 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Inhalational anthrax — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

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.

"Inhalational anthrax" OR "Inhalation anthrax disease" OR "Pulmonary anthrax" OR "Respiratory anthrax" OR "Respiratory anthrax disease"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Inhalation anthrax

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

"Inhalational anthrax" OR "Inhalation anthrax disease" OR "Pulmonary anthrax" OR "Respiratory anthrax" OR "Respiratory anthrax disease" OR "Inhalation anthrax"

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

Study-type breakdown: 8 interventional · 1 observational · 0 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

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (1512) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T10:31:08.341Z