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What is openVirus?

OpenVirus is a project that aims to develop knowledge resources and tools to help tackle the COVID-19 outbreak.

The world faces and will continue to face viral epidemics. These arise suddenly and scientific and medical knowledge is a critical resource for battling epidemics. Despite over 100 Billion USD being spent on medical research worldwide, much knowledge is behind publisher paywalls and is only available to rich universities. Moreover it is usually badly published, dispersed without coherent knowledge tools. This particularly disadvantages the Global South.

This project aims to use modern tools, especially Wikidata (and Wikipedia), R, Java, text mining, with semantic tools to create a modern integrated resource of all current published information on viruses and their epidemics. It relies on collaboration and gifts of labour and knowledge.

How Can I Help?

Take a look at the project README and the How Can I Help section of the FAQ, and jump in!

Feel free to raise issues or ask questions on the project issue tracker.