Data, disease and diplomacy: GISAID's innovative contribution to global health

Impact Statement: The rapid spread of lethal infectious diseases is a global challenge potentially affecting any person around the world. To protect populations against such deadly outbreaks, it is critical that scientists and governments rapidly share information about the pathogens causing them. Without access to such information, it will be very difficult to properly assess the risk posed to global health, to develop new medical countermeasures, and to mount a commensurate international response. However, recent outbreaks suggest several impediments to the rapid sharing of virus data. Scientist may wish to withhold data until their scholarly studies are published; governments are fearful about the repercussions of being associated with a major new outbreak, and it remains challenging to fund global public goods like an international database to host such data. Through the first study of the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), this article shows how it is possible to encourage the greater international sharing of such data through the careful design of new sharing mechanisms. GISAID has now developed a successful track-record in the field of influenza that may also serve as a useful blueprint for managing other diseases and global challenges requiring the international sharing of sensitive data.