While we all may have come across some disease or the other, there does exist a set of rare diseases, also called orphan diseases, that may inflict upon a very few number of people worldwide. If a disease has not been detected more than just a handful of times, it can be referred to as a rare disease. Nevertheless, these diseases can still be very dangerous. In fact, you can count on them to be more dangerous than the common types, because as they are so rare, no proper treatments have been conjured up for most of them, making them highly reckless and harsh.
Here are some of the rarest diseases in the world.
Morgellons can be classified as one of the rarest diseases in the world. While some of the medical world is still not convinced of its existence due to the very number of cases worldwide, it has been reported to afflict around 2000 people in America, who believe they suffer from this particular disease. Said to be a chronic infectious disease of sorts, the primary symptoms of this disease are dictated by itching, biting, crawling sensations, skin lesions, along with memory loss, fatigue and joint pain. Some of the cases have been detected in children, where there is evidence that the disease can hinder normal everyday activities for these children, such as playing and going to school etc. No cure or effective treatment has yet been established against Morgellons.
Microcephaly is an extremely rare disease that comes to horizon immediately at birth or sometimes right before it. With microcephaly the child’s brain, while in the womb, is unable to develop in a normal fashion, or sometimes stops to grow altogether. The main reason believed to cause this condition is exposure to harmful substances while the child is in the womb, such as radiation. The condition causes the head of the infant to be smaller than normal usual size and is usually coupled with Down syndrome and other conditions such as dwarfism, seizures, hyperactivity, speech problems, motor retardation and such.
Even though quite a few kinds of pemphigus exist, this particular kind is the rarest and the most severe. PNP is an autoimmune disease which can cause severe blistering. What happens in the disease is that keratinocytes making up the epidemus part ways from each other, leaving gaps open which may fill up with fluid peel off and leave the skin open to infection. The blisters are most commonly found in the throat, the mouth and the lips.
Yet another extremely rare disease is kuru. Kuru can be a fat illness, and it is so rare that it has only been found in on specific tribe in New Guinea called the Fore tribe, dwelling in the highlands. The disease emerged dude to cannibalism, and those affected with it usually die in a comatose state in a span of 6 months to a year. However, thanks to government intervention in an attempt to eliminate cannibalism, the disease now barely exists.
More commonly referred to as Progeria, this disease has been known to affect only 1 out of every 8 million children born in the world. Most of the children who are suffer from this disease live up to only 13 years of age, while others may live to see their twenties. The basic cause of occurrence of this disease is a new mutation which can be dictated by a rather rapid and dramatic ageing process which begins in childhood. There is no cure for this disease to date. Doctors have tried the use of anticancer drugs and growth hormones to limit the disease, but to no avail.
