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ORPHA:99824

Lassa fever

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: LF · Lassa hemorrhagic fever

Publications

5,590

Trials

10

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,589

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Lassa fever (LF) is a potentially severe viral hemorrhagic disease caused by Lassa virus and characterized by initial fever and malaise followed by gastrointestinal symptoms and, in severe cases, bleeding, shock and multi-organ system failure.

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.”

4/6 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

    5,590 matched papers (3,291 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    27 HPO annotations (e.g. Asthenia; Muscle weakness; Diarrhea) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

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

  5. Orphan designationPartial

    1 EMA designation (none yet with FDA orphan-indication approval) — e.g. ribavirin Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    10 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (3 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)

27

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0005820

  • Asthenia
  • Muscle weakness
  • Diarrhea
  • Arthralgia
  • Pharyngitis

Showing 5 of 27 — open Monarch for the full list.

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 2026-07-27

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)

1

Designation · no FDA orphan-indication approval yet

  • EMA ribavirinTreatment of Lassa fever · 21/02/2018 · PositiveEMA designation

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

4

Drugs / clinical candidates · MONDO_0005820

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

1 associated chemical · 18 pathways. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • Ribavirin · therapeutic

Pathways: ECM-receptor interaction; Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM); Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC); Dilated cardiomyopathy; Viral myocarditis; Extracellular matrix organization; Disease; Integrin cell surface interactions

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0005820

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

5,590

5,590 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=3967) is 59.

5,590 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).

3,291 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 5,590 · MeSH hits: 163

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,589

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
    Günther S13 papers · 2026

    Department of Virology, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Simons D12 papers · 2026

    Department of Anthropology, , University Park ,

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Asogun D10 papers · 2026

    Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Edo State, Nigeria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Okogbenin S9 papers · 2026

    Institute of Lassa Fever Research and Control, Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Nigeria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Saka SA7 papers · 2025

    Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Edo State, Nigeria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Abejegah C6 papers · 2026

    Federal Medical Centre, Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Ayodeji OO6 papers · 2026

    Federal Medical Center of Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Fichet-Calvet E6 papers · 2026

    Zoonoses Control Research Group, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Friant S6 papers · 2026

    Department of Anthropology, , University Park ,

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Hinrichs M6 papers · 2026

    Department of Virology, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

10

interventional trials for this specific condition

10 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 3 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 9 September 2026

10 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 92.5th percentile).

low confidence · 92.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

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

Observational and natural-history studies

5 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

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 4 · after dedupe 4 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 4 · parent 0 · uncertain 0 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-27

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

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 Lassa fever — 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.

"Lassa fever" OR "Lassa hemorrhagic fever"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Lassa Fever

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

"Lassa fever" OR "Lassa hemorrhagic 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: 10 interventional · 5 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

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: LF

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is short or not clearly distinctive
  • 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-26T01:45:46.319Z