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ORPHA:879

Tungiasis

medium confidenceDisorder

Publications

682

77.7th percentile

Trials

2

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

875

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Tungiasis is a parasitic skin disease caused by the female sand flea Tunga penetrans. The disease is characterized by acute (multiple white, gray, or yellowish papular or nodular lesions with brown-black-colored opening at the center and peripheral erythema) and chronic inflammation in the feet with itchy/ painful lesions. Bacterial superinfection is common and result in debilitating clinical pathology (deep ulcers, gangrene, lymphangitis and septicemia), leading to impaired physical fitness and mobility. Tungiasis also involves hyperkeratosis, fissuration, nail hypertrophy, and loss of nails.

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 (3)

Tunga penetrans caused disease or disorder · Tunga penetrans disease or disorder · Tunga penetrans 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

    682 matched papers (330 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot found

    No HPO disease–phenotype associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationNot found

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

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    2 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (1 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)

None returned for this Mondo ID. That often means “not linked under this ID,” not “no clinical features.”

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

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)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

682

682 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=3967) is 59.

682 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).

330 in the last 10 years · medium confidence · 77.7th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 682 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

875

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
    Elson L31 papers · 2026

    WAJIMIDA Jigger Campaign, Dabaso Tujengane CBO, Watamu, Kenya.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Feldmeier H31 papers · 2026

    Institute of Microbiology and Hygiene, Charité University Medicine, Berlin, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Fillinger U26 papers · 2026

    International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Human Health Theme, Thomas Odhiambo Campus, Mbita, Kenya.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Mutebi F22 papers · 2026

    College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity, Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Krücken J16 papers · 2026

    Institute for Parasitology and Tropical Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin, 14163 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: Juergen.Kruecken@fu-berlin.de.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Matharu AK12 papers · 2026

    International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Human Health Theme, Nairobi 00100, Kenya.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Harvey TV11 papers · 2026

    Department of Agrarian and Environmental Sciences, Post-Graduate Program in Animal Science, State University of Santa Cruz, Campus Soane Nazaré de Andrade, Rodovia Jorge Amado, Km 16, Bairro Salobrinho, IIhéus, Bahia, CEP 45662-900, Brazil. tatianivitor@yahoo.com.br.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Carlos RSA10 papers · 2026

    Department of Agrarian and Environmental Sciences, Post-Graduate Program in Animal Science, State University of Santa Cruz, Campus Soane Nazaré de Andrade, Rodovia Jorge Amado, Km 16, Bairro Salobrinho, IIhéus, Bahia, CEP 45662-900, Brazil.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Heukelbach J10 papers · 2026

    Department of Community Health, School of Medicine, Federal University of Ceará, Rua Prof. Costa Mendes 1608, 5. andar, Fortaleza, CE, 60430-140, Brazil.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Thielecke M10 papers · 2026

    Institute of Tropical Medicine and International Health, Charité University Medicine, Berlin 10117, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

2

interventional trials for this specific condition

2 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 1 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 11 September 2026

2 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 84.5th percentile).

medium confidence · 84.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

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

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 8 · after dedupe 8 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 8 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-29

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 (8)

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 Tungiasis — 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.

"Tungiasis" OR "Tunga penetrans infectious disease"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Tungiasis" OR "Tunga penetrans 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: 2 interventional · 0 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

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: Tunga penetrans caused disease or disorder; Tunga penetrans 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

Ingested 2026-07-26T15:43:53.752Z