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ORPHA:91547

Relapsing fever

low confidenceDisorder

Publications

16,643

Trials

3

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,241

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

An infectious disease, rare in Europe, characterized by relapsing fever accompanied by headaches, vomiting and myalgia lasting 2-7 days, with afebrile intervals of up to 10 days. It is caused by bacterial species of the genus Borrelia, and transmitted by ticks (tick-borne relapsing fever; TBRF) and lice (louse-borne relapsing fever; LBRF).

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.

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

    16,643 matched papers (6,455 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

    3 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)

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?

16,643

16,643 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.

16,643 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).

6,455 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 16,643 · MeSH hits: 384

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,241

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
    Lopez JE8 papers · 2026

    Department of Pediatrics, Division of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA; Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA. Electronic address: job.lopez@bcm.edu.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Ibarra JA6 papers · 2026

    Laboratorio de Genética Microbiana, Departamento de Microbiología, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico City, Mexico.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Baneth G5 papers · 2026

    Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O. Box 12, 7610001, Rehovot, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Kneubehl AR5 papers · 2026

    Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX 77030, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Nachum-Biala Y5 papers · 2026

    Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O. Box 12, 7610001, Rehovot, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Shwartz D5 papers · 2026

    Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O. Box 12, 7610001, Rehovot, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Vázquez-Guerrero E5 papers · 2026

    Laboratorio de Genética Microbiana, Departamento de Microbiología, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico City, Mexico.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Eisen RJ4 papers · 2026

    Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, CO, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Fingerle V4 papers · 2026

    German National Reference Center for Borrelia, Bayerisches Landesamt für Gesundheit und Lebensmittelsicherheit, Oberschleißheim, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Hojgaard A4 papers · 2026

    Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, CO, USA.

    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; 1 currently recruiting in our sample.

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.

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.

"Relapsing fever"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Relapsing Fever

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

"Relapsing fever"

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: 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 (16643) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T04:05:26.586Z