RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS

ORPHA:448237

Zika virus disease

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Zika virus infection

Publications

15,040

Trials

17

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,593

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Zika virus disease is an emerging Aedes mosquito-born virus disease characterized by a clinical course that may be asymptomatic or mild with fever, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, headache, exanthema, but may also be associated with severe neurological (meningitis, meningoencephalitis and myelitis) and auto-immune (Guillain-Barre syndrome) complications, as well as a potential increase of birth defects (microcephaly) if the infection occurs during pregnancy.

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 (5)

ZikV infection · Zika · Zika virus caused disease or disorder · Zika virus disease or disorder · Zika virus infectious 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

    15,040 matched papers (13,257 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    35 HPO annotations (e.g. Abnormal cerebrospinal fluid morphology; Myalgia; Increased circulating IgM concentration) Source

  4. Animal modelPresent

    1 genotype model (Mus musculus) Source

  5. Orphan designationNot found

    No FDA or EMA orphan-drug designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    17 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov

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)

35

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0018661

  • Abnormal cerebrospinal fluid morphology
  • Myalgia
  • Increased circulating IgM concentration
  • Edema
  • Wrist swelling

Showing 5 of 35 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

1

Model associations linked to this Mondo ID

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)

No designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name on the FDA OOPD mirror or EMA orphan register. Absence here is not proof that none exists under another wording.

Open Targets candidates

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

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

4 associated chemicals · 5 pathways. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • Chloroquine · therapeutic
  • Hydroxychloroquine · therapeutic
  • IDX184 · therapeutic
  • Niclosamide · therapeutic

Pathways: Autophagy - other; Autophagy - animal; NOD-like receptor signaling pathway; Macroautophagy; Cellular responses to stress

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0018661

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

15,040

15,040 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=3967) is 59.

15,040 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).

13,257 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 15,040 · MeSH hits: 388

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,593

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
    Wang Y7 papers · 2026

    Department of Orthopedics, Northern Jiangsu People's Hospital, Clinical Teaching Hospital of Medical School,Nanjing University, Yangzhou, China. wangyongxiang@nju.edu.cn.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Li M5 papers · 2026

    School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Wang W5 papers · 2026

    Bioland Laboratory, Guangzhou, 510005, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Yu J5 papers · 2026

    Center for Retrovirus Research, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Li Y4 papers · 2026

    Institute of Human Virology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 501180, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Liu S4 papers · 2026

    Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Zhang H4 papers · 2026

    Department of Vector Biology and Control, State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Beijing Key Laboratory of Vector Borne and Natural Focus Infectious Diseases, Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Beijing Key Laboratory, Beijing, 100071, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Aliota MT3 papers · 2025

    Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, St Paul, MN, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    An J3 papers · 2025

    Department of Microbiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Chahroudi A3 papers · 2026

    Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA; Emory National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, GA, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

17

interventional trials for this specific condition

17 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting.

Data as of 11 September 2026

17 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 94.4th percentile).

low confidence · 94.4th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

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

No currently recruiting studies in the matched set. Open the same search on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Observational and natural-history studies

16 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

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 12 · after dedupe 12 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 12 · 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).

Uncertain / not reviewed (12)

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 Zika virus disease — 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.

"Zika virus disease" OR "Zika virus infection" OR "ZikV infection" OR "Zika virus infectious disease"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Zika Virus Infection

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

"Zika virus disease" OR "Zika virus infection" OR "ZikV infection" OR "Zika virus infectious disease"

Interventional trials matched via: both, 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: 17 interventional · 16 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

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: Zika; Zika virus caused disease or disorder; Zika virus 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 (15040) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T16:36:24.064Z