ORPHA:533
Listeriosis
Also known as: Listeria infection
Clinical definition (Orphanet)
A rare bacterial infectious disease caused by the foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, characterized by a febrile gastroenteritis, which is usually mild and self-limiting in otherwise healthy persons, but can progress to severe illness in at-risk groups like pregnant women, elderly people, immunocompromised people, and neonates. Complications include sepsis, meningitis, and encephalitis. Listeriosis during pregnancy usually occurs during the third trimester and may lead to preterm labor, miscarriage, stillbirth, or intrauterine infection of the unborn child.
How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.
Is anyone studying this?
18,969
18,969 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=183) is 38.
18,969 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 38 (publications denominator n=183).
6,794 in the last 10 years · low confidence
Is a treatment being tested?
2
trials for this specific condition
2 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 1 currently recruiting in our sample.
Data as of 26 July 2026
2 interventional trials — more than 59.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (151 of 255; this disease is at the 74.7th percentile).
low confidence · 74.7th percentile (trials denominator)
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.
Who's working on it?
1,138
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.
- 01Leclercq A6 papers · 2026
Institut Pasteur, Listeria National Reference Center and WHO Collaborating Center, Paris, France.
Papers in Europe PMC - 02Li X6 papers · 2026
Department of Pulmonology, Gansu Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, Gansu, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 03Yin Y6 papers · 2026
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China; Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control of Biological Hazard Factors (Animal Origin) for Agrifood Safety and Quality, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China; Co-Innovation Center for Prevention and Control of Important Animal Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses, Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China; College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China. Electronic address: yylan@yzu.edu.cn.
Papers in Europe PMC - 04Jiao X5 papers · 2026
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China; Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control of Biological Hazard Factors (Animal Origin) for Agrifood Safety and Quality, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China; Co-Innovation Center for Prevention and Control of Important Animal Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses, Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China; College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China. Electronic address: jiao@yzu.edu.cn.
Papers in Europe PMC - 05Lecuit M5 papers · 2026
Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Inserm U1117, Biology of Infection Unit, Paris, France. marc.lecuit@pasteur.fr.
Papers in Europe PMC - 06Wang Y5 papers · 2026
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Zoonosis, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China; Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control of Biological Hazard Factors (Animal Origin) for Agrifood Safety and Quality, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China; Co-Innovation Center for Prevention and Control of Important Animal Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses, Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China; College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 07Halbedel S4 papers · 2026
FG11 Division of Enteropathogenic Bacteria and Legionella, Consultant Laboratory for Listeria, Robert Koch Institute, Wernigerode, Germany.
Papers in Europe PMC - 08Li Y4 papers · 2026
Key Laboratory for Experimental Teratology of the Ministry of Education, Advanced Medical Research Institute, Qilu Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 09Wang Z4 papers · 2026
College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 10Wu Y4 papers · 2026
College of Life Science and Resources and Environment, Yichun University, Yichun, China.
Papers in Europe PMC
Recruiting interventional trials
Trials testing a treatment from the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set
2 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.
Observational and natural-history studies
2 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.
None of the matched observational studies is currently listed as recruiting.
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 2026-07-26This 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 below but are not added to the query string.
"Listeriosis" OR "Listeria infection" OR "Listeria monocytogenes caused disease or disorder" OR "Listeria monocytogenes disease or disorder" OR "Listeria monocytogenes infectious disease" OR "infection by Listeria monocytogenes"
MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Listeriosis
ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):
"Listeriosis" OR "Listeria infection" OR "Listeria monocytogenes infectious disease" OR "infection by Listeria monocytogenes"
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: 2 interventional · 2 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.
Cross-references (from Mondo): MESH:D008088 UMLS:C0023860 NCIT:C82994
Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh
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 (18969) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity