Online Encyclopedia
Rare disease
A rare disease has such a low prevalence in a population that a doctor in a busy general practice would not expect to see more than one case a year. Rare diseases, including those of genetic origin, are life-threatening or chronically debilitating diseases which are of such low prevalence that special combined efforts are needed to address them. As a guide, low prevalence is taken as prevalence of less than 5 per 10,000 in the Community [1] http://europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph_information/documents/ev20040705_rd05_en.pdf .
Rare diseases will vary from population to population, as a disease that is rare in some populations may be common in another. This is especially true of some genetic and infectious diseases. For example, cystic fibrosis is a rare genetic disease in most parts of Asia but is relatively common in some Eurasian populations. Many infectious diseases, such as tropical diseases, are rare outside a given geographic area.
See also List of common diseases.
List of rare diseases
Note: The links below lead to sections of a list of rare diseases that was originally taken from the NIH public domain resource at http://ord.aspensys.com/diseases.asp.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
See also
External links
Rare diseases organizations:
- Europe:
- Eurordis http://www.eurordis.org/ -- European Organization for Rare Diseases
- EUROCAT: European network of population based registries for congenital anomalies http://www.eurocat.ulster.ac.uk .
- List of projects funded by year http://europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph_projects/rarediseases_Project_en.htm .
- Key documents http://europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph_overview/previous_programme/rare_diseases/ke
ydo_rarediseases_en.htm . - DG SANCO Task Force on Rare Diseases; Two day conference on Rare Diseases 2005 http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph_threats/non_com/ev_pre2005_en.htm
- DG RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND DEMONSTRATION 6TH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME (2002-2006): Life sciences, genomics and biotechnology for health http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/research/fp6/index_en.html .
- Orphanet: database of rare diseases http://www.orpha.net .
- Orphan medicinal products http:www.pharmacos.eudra.org/F2/orphanmp/index.htm .
- Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP) http://www.emea.eu.int/htms/general/contacts/COMP.html of the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA).
- USA: National Organization for Rare Disorders http://www.rarediseases.org/