Zika virus related datasets
Organizers: Jane Messina, Moritz Kraemer and Simon Hay
(University of Oxford & University of Washington)

Scientific Data is inviting submissions releasing and describing datasets related to Zika virus and the associated outbreak of microcephalic cases in South America. Submissions may be considered for inclusion in a special article collection on this topic.

To encourage early release of data related to this serious public health issue, all submissions received by 31st May 2016 and ultimately accepted for publication will have their article processing charge waived in full. Submissions after this date are still welcome, and will be considered according to the standard policies of the journal.

Submissions may describe data from a range of research fields, including epidemiological, clinical or experimental research. Datasets should be relevant to research on the biology or occurrence of the Zika virus, spread of the virus via its mosquito vectors, Zika fever, or the potential link between Zika and fetal brain damage or microcephaly. Datasets derived from, or designed to support, computational modelling are welcome, but must be supported in a rigorous manner according to the standards of the journal. Prospective authors are encouraged to read more about our criteria for publication: www.nature.com/sdata/for-referees#criteria

All authors submitting manuscripts in response to this call will be strongly encouraged to release a preprint version of their manuscript immediately upon submission, through an appropriate community preprint server such as bioRxiv (http://biorxiv.org/).

Researchers will be required to deposit their datasets to an appropriate repository, and data must be released to the wider research community upon publication of the Data Descriptor. Researchers wishing to describe data from human patients, which cannot be openly released, are encouraged to contact the journal to discuss appropriate mechanisms for peer-reviewing and sharing the data.

Interested in submitting a Data Descriptor in response to this call for submissions?
If you have any questions or would like to make an presubmission enquiry, please contact the Managing Editor, Andrew Hufton, with appropriate details: scientificdatareplies@nature.com