RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS
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ORPHA:548

Leprosy

low confidenceDisorder

Publications

73,555

Trials

38

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,071

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A chronic infectious disease affecting primarily the skin and peripheral nervous system.

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)

Hansen disease · Hansen's disease · Mycobacterium leprae caused disease or disorder · Mycobacterium leprae disease or disorder · Mycobacterium leprae 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.”

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

    73,555 matched papers (22,420 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

    38 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (9 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?

73,555

73,555 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.

73,555 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).

22,420 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 73,555 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,071

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
    Fastenau A7 papers · 2026

    Department of Global Health, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany. fastenau@uni-bremen.de.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Avanzi C4 papers · 2026

    Mycobacteria Research Laboratories, Colorado State University, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Fort Collins, CO, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Chukwu J4 papers · 2026

    Medical Department, RedAid Nigeria, Enugu 400001 Enugu State, Nigeria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Deps PD4 papers · 2026

    Department of Social Medicine, Postgraduate Program in Infectious Diseases, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, ES, Brazil.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Egbule D4 papers · 2026

    RedAid Nigeria, Enugu, Nigeria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Ekeke N4 papers · 2026

    Medical Department, RedAid Nigeria, Enugu 400001 Enugu State, Nigeria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Eze C4 papers · 2026

    Medical Department, RedAid Nigeria, Enugu 400001 Enugu State, Nigeria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Frade MAC4 papers · 2026

    Department of Interne Medicine - Dermatology, Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Kumar S4 papers · 2025

    Respiratory Medicine, Autonomous State Medical College, Etah, IND.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Lahiri R4 papers · 2026

    Kusuma School of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, 110016, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

38

interventional trials for this specific condition

38 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 9 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 27 July 2026

38 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 96.4th percentile).

low confidence · 96.4th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

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

Observational and natural-history studies

10 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.

"Leprosy" OR "Hansen disease" OR "Hansen's disease" OR "Mycobacterium leprae infectious disease"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Leprosy" OR "Hansen disease" OR "Hansen's disease" OR "Mycobacterium leprae infectious disease"

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: 38 interventional · 10 observational · 1 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

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

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: Mycobacterium leprae caused disease or disorder; Mycobacterium leprae disease or disorder

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 (73555) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-26T14:17:15.727Z