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].
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: