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ORPHA:3299

Tetanus

low confidenceDisorder

Publications

94,099

Trials

247

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,482

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A toxin-mediated infection due to the anaerobic bacteria Clostridium tetani and characterized by spasms and contractions of the skeletal muscles, the disease is often lethal.

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 (2)

Clostridium tetani caused infectious disease of the nervous system · Clostridium tetani infectious disease of the nervous system

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

    94,099 matched papers (31,681 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

    247 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (22 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?

94,099

94,099 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.

94,099 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).

31,681 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 94,099 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,482

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
    Li Y7 papers · 2026

    Institute of Medical Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Kunming, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Wang Y7 papers · 2026

    Henan Province Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Zhengzhou, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Zhang Y7 papers · 2026

    China National Biotec Group Company Limited, Beijing, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Zhu Y7 papers · 2026

    Optum Life Sciences, Eden Prairie, MN, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Wang X6 papers · 2026

    Wuhan Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd, Hubei, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Chen Y5 papers · 2026

    Emergency Department, Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Huang Y5 papers · 2026

    Beijing Institute for Brain Research, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Li H5 papers · 2026

    Tianjin Key Laboratory of Organic Solar Cells and Photochemical Conversion, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, PR China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Li J5 papers · 2026

    The Second Clinical Medical School of Shandong University, Jinan, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Liu C5 papers · 2026

    Department of Emergency, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, 100034, PR China. Electronic address: Chengliu218@pku.edu.cn.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

247

interventional trials for this specific condition

247 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 22 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 27 July 2026

247 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 99.5th percentile).

low confidence · 99.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

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

Observational and natural-history studies

26 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.

"Tetanus" OR "Clostridium tetani caused infectious disease of the nervous system" OR "Clostridium tetani caused infectious disease of nervous system" OR "Clostridium tetani infectious disease of the nervous system" OR "Clostridium tetani infectious disease of nervous system"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Tetanus" OR "Clostridium tetani caused infectious disease of the nervous system" OR "Clostridium tetani caused infectious disease of nervous system" OR "Clostridium tetani infectious disease of the nervous system" OR "Clostridium tetani infectious disease of nervous system"

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

Study-type breakdown: 247 interventional · 26 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

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

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is short or not clearly distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (94099) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-26T22:47:04.185Z