Eurosurveillance: GISAID: Global initiative on sharing all influenza data ? from vision to reality

[tetano]

Eurosurveillance, Volume 22, Issue 13, 30 March 2017
Editorial

GISAID: Global initiative on sharing all influenza data ? from vision to reality


Y Shu [SUP]1[/SUP] , J McCauley [SUP]2[/SUP]
+ Author affiliations
1. WHO Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Influenza, Chinese National Influenza Center, National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China
2. WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, Crick Worldwide Influenza Centre, the Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom

Correspondence John McCauley (John.McCauley@crick.ac.uk)

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Citation style for this article: Shu Y, McCauley J. GISAID: Global initiative on sharing all influenza data ? from vision to reality. Euro Surveill. 2017;22(13)ii=30494. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2017.22.13.30494

Received:27 March 2017; Accepted:29 March 2017

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Ten years ago, a correspondence [1,2], signed by more than 70 championed ?A global initiative on sharing avian flu data? (GISAID) [3], leading to the GISAID Initiative in 2008. What started out as an expression of intent to foster international sharing of all influenza virus data and to publish results collaboratively has emerged as an indispensable mechanism for sharing influenza genetic sequence and metadata that embraces the interests and concerns of the wider influenza community, public health and animal health scientists, along with governments around the world. Today GISAID is recognised as an effective and trusted mechanism for rapid sharing of both published and ?unpublished? influenza data [4]. Its concept for incentivising data sharing established an alternative to data sharing via conventional public-domain archives.

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full article

http://eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=22750

 

[sharon sanders]

I do not share the same opinion as the authors.

 

[JJackson]

I also think this article has flaws. I am all for rapid data release and use both genebank and gisaid but I think the explanation of how gisaid came into existence and the creation of PIP failed to explain the developing world's (led by Indonesia) revolt and sequence withholding at the previous systems bias. The problem was not with genebank, and gisaid was not required, once the PIP had been hammered out genebank could have easily continued as the sole repository, all that was needed was a Creative Commons type agreement on fair use. The key to PIP was some kind of quid-pro-quo between those countries supplying samples and those profiting from those samples. Indonesia et al's problem is they provided the samples for sequencing and got no benefit, it was PIP not GISAID that solved the problem.