Publishers and Health Organizations Release Statement on “Sharing Data During Zika and Other Global Health Emergencies”

From the Wellcome Trust Blog*:

The arguments for sharing data, and the consequences of not doing so, have been thrown into stark relief by the Ebola and Zika outbreaks.
In the context of a public health emergency of international concern, there is an imperative on all parties to make any information available that might have value in combatting the crisis.
We are committed to working in partnership to ensure that the global response to public health emergencies is informed by the best available research evidence and data, as such:
Journal signatories will make all content concerning the Zika virus free to access. Any data or preprint deposited for unrestricted dissemination ahead of submission of any paper will not pre-empt its publication in these journals.
Funder signatories will require researchers undertaking work relevant to public health emergencies to set in place mechanisms to share quality-assured interim and final data as rapidly and widely as possible, including with public health and research communities and the World Health Organisation.
We urge other organisations to make the same commitments.

Read the Complete Statement
See Also: Zika Emergency Puts Open Data Policies to the Test (via Speaking of Medicine/PLOS)
* This statement is also available on the PLOS Blog
Signatories

• Academy of Medical Sciences, UK
• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
• The British Medical Journal (BMJ)
• Bulletin of the World Health Organization
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
• The Department of Biotechnology, Government of India
• The Department for International Development (DFID)
• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
• eLife
• The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• F1000
• Fondation Mérieux
• Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz)
• The Institut Pasteur
• Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED)
• The JAMA Network
• The Lancet
• Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
• National Academy of Medicine
• National Institutes of Health, USA
• National Science Foundation, USA
• The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
• PLOS
• Science Journals
• South African Medical Research Council
• Springer Nature
• UK Medical Research Council
• Wellcome Trust
• ZonMw – The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, Journal Articles, News, PLOS, Springer Nature