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F1000, together with a number of leading global health funding organizations, NGOs, institutions and other publishers have signed a joint declaration on data sharing in public health emergencies, which has just been issued. The declaration was prompted by a consensus statement following an WHO consultation in September last year; the lack of rapid data sharing has been highlighted as a factor that likely hindered the research community’s response to the Ebola crisis (see Moon et al. for example) and there is a fear that the same might happen with the current Zika outbreak.

The declaration states that journals will make their content relating to Zika free to access. As an Open Access publisher, F1000Research’s commitment to the declaration is in waiving the article processing charges of all manuscripts relating to Zika and the control of its vectors Aedes aegypti and albopictus. In fact, we launched the diamond-access Zika & Arbovirus Outbreaks Channel early last week to encourage the reporting of findings related to Zika and its control. And we go further in ensuring that the source data associated with articles is included in the final publication so that others involved in the response can rapidly reuse it in their own efforts to address the outbreak.

The statement together with the list of signatories is re-posted below in full, and the associated press release can be found here.

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Statement on Data Sharing in Public Health Emergencies

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 combating 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.

This commitment is in line with the consensus statement agreed at a WHO expert consultation on data sharing last year whereby researchers are expected to share data at the earliest opportunity, once they are adequately controlled for release and subject to any safeguards required to protect research participants and patients.

 

Signatories to the Statement

Academy of Medical Sciences, UK

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)

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

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

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