Avian Influenza Disease Emergency: issue No. 42 (11/09/2006)

Abstract

Bringing bird flu data into the global open - A group of avian influenza researchers has decided to lift the curtain and share data in a move to help international efforts to understand the spread and evolution of the bird flu virus. In a letter to ‘Nature’ published 24 August, 70 scientists and health officials announced the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID), designed to stimulate worldwide sharing of avian flu data. The move comes less than one month after the joint OI E/FAO Network on Avian Influenza (OFFLU) agreed to share information on avian influenza virus sequences and make this available to the entire scientific community (see AIDEnews No 41). Under that initiative, genetic information on virus strains would be posted on the OFFLU website (www.offlu.net), sent to the U.S. National Institutes of Health for sequencing, and deposited in the free-access database, GenBank.