ORPHA:83593
Western equine encephalitis
Also known as: Western equine encephalomyelitis
Publications
3,353
Trials
3
Interventional, condition-specific
Researchers
1,399
Distinct authors in sample
Gene link
—
Readiness
2/6
Stages with a signal
Clinical definition (Orphanet)
An acute arboviral infection caused by an alphavirus of the Togaviridae family transmitted by an infected mosquito, that more frequently affects children and that is characterized by the presence of mild flu-like symptoms (fever, chills, headache, nausea, vomiting, and anorexia) but that can progress to weakness, altered mental status, photophobia, mental confusion, , somnolence, coma and/or even death. The disease can leave neurological sequelae, mainly in infants and children, such as , spasticity or behavioral disorders.
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.
Cross-references
Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.
- MONDO:0019380
- MeSH:D020241
- UMLS:C0153064
- NCIT:C85227
Additional Mondo synonyms (2)
Western equine encephalitis virus caused infectious encephalitis · Western equine encephalitis virus infectious encephalitis
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.
- Gene identifiedNot found
No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build
- LiteraturePresent
3,353 matched papers (1,188 in last 10 years) Source
- Phenotype characterisedNot checked
Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO
- Animal modelNot checked
Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance
- Orphan designationNot checked
FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet
- Interventional trialPresent
3 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)
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?
3,353
3,353 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=5449) is 41.
3,353 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).
1,188 in the last 10 years · low confidence
Phrase hits: 3,353 · MeSH hits: 3
Who's working on it?
1,399
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.
- 01Weaver SC9 papers · 2025
Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 02Kehn-Hall K6 papers · 2026
National Center for Biodefence and Infectious Diseases, George Mason University, Manassas, VA 20110, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 03Klimstra WB6 papers · 2026
The Center for Vaccine Research and Department of Immunology, The University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 04Zhang L6 papers · 2026
Department of Infectious Diseases, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 05Chen Y5 papers · 2026
Laboratory of Advanced Biotechnology, ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 06Diamond MS5 papers · 2026
Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110.
Papers in Europe PMC - 07Pérez R5 papers · 2025
Sección Genética Evolutiva, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay. rperez@fcien.edu.uy.
Papers in Europe PMC - 08Ahuka-Mundeke S4 papers · 2026
Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Papers in Europe PMC - 09Ariën KK4 papers · 2026
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Unit of Virology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium; Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium. Electronic address: karien@itg.be.
Papers in Europe PMC - 10Casseb LMN4 papers · 2026
Veterinarian, DSc., Seção de Arbovirologia e Febres Hemorrágicas, IEC, Ananindeua, PA, Brazil.
Papers in Europe PMC
Clinical research
Is a treatment being tested?
3
interventional trials for this specific condition
3 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting.
Data as of 27 July 2026
3 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 85.1th percentile).
low confidence · 85.1th percentile (trials denominator)
Recruiting interventional trials
From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set
3 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.
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 on the overview but are not added to the query string.
"Western equine encephalitis" OR "Western equine encephalomyelitis" OR "Western equine encephalitis virus caused infectious encephalitis" OR "Western equine encephalitis virus infectious encephalitis"
MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Encephalomyelitis, Western Equine
ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):
"Western equine encephalitis" OR "Western equine encephalomyelitis" OR "Western equine encephalitis virus caused infectious encephalitis" OR "Western equine encephalitis virus infectious encephalitis" OR "Encephalomyelitis, Western Equine"
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: 3 interventional · 0 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 (3353) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity
Ingested 2026-07-27T02:39:25.882Z