In an online workshop on December 7, 2021, in collaboration with PATH and ReCoDID and hosted by The Global Health Network (TGHN), continued efforts were made to explore potential solutions and proposed a Virtual Biorepository System (VBS) as a more sustainable long term grassroots approach. The scope was also expanded from ZIKV to include COVID-19 and other outbreak prone diseases. We focused initially on information gathering to identify the key benefits of a VBS to both specimen users and providers. A survey and interviews with stakeholders were conducted between December 2020 and 2021 and included representatives from different regions of the globe and organization types. We established a web presence for the VBS hosted by TGHN: https://globalbiorepository.tghn.org/and reached out to various partners to ensure harmonization with other biorepository and specimen access initiatives such as WHOs BioHub and the NIH supported Centers for Research of Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID) network among others.
