ISARIC Hantavirus Research Response Guidance
ISARIC has partnered with global experts to adapt its Clinical Epidemiology Platform, enabling research on the clinical characteristics of hantavirus to guide patient care and inform health policy. Dedicated to enhancing evidence generation, ISARIC provides tools and support for research teams to quickly set up studies that address the research questions in their context and inform clinical trial design. The platform is also available for collaborative analyses that can characterise hantavirus across different settings, populations, and over time.
The ISARIC-WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol and the ISARIC Clinical Epidemiology Platform is a suite of openly-available, standardised tools to support your research and facilitate global collaboration. Tools within this platform will help you to create a Case Report Form (CRF), launch a database, and perform statistical analysis on the data you collect.
All data collected using these tools remain the property of the individuals and institutions that collect them. ISARIC tools are developed to support locally-led research. ISARIC does not seek to claim ownership of, or assert rights over data collected using the tools.
For more information about our research and activities on hantavirus, please visit the ISARIC website.
Below are the steps to set up your hantavirus study. The templates included below are up to date as of 11 May 2026.
STEP 1: Prepare your protocol
The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently developing a clinical characterisation protocol for hantavirus. We expect this to be publicly available soon. If you would like to advance your protocol before this time, or if you prefer to use a generic protocol that can be applied across multiple outbreaks of different diseases, you may use the ISARIC-WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol (CCP).
The CCP provides a standardised method for the rapid, coordinated clinical investigation of emerging health threats. CCP v3.3 is available at the link below and can be used as a general protocol framework for your study.
Be sure to secure the ethics and regulatory approvals required for your study.
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STEP 2: Case Report Form (CRF)
Use the ISARIC hantavirus CRF below to capture data for your study. It is designed to capture the key clinical and epidemiological variables needed to inform clinical management, public health policy and clinical trial design.
You can use the CRF as provided, or adapt it to your context as needed.
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STEP 3: Set up a database for data capture
Use the XML file and data dictionary below to set up a REDCap database that matches the CRF.
If your institution uses REDCap, upload the XML file and data dictionary to a REDCap project to launch a database for your study.
If your institution does not currently host REDCap software, but would like to, you can find installation instructions and technical requirements on the REDCap home page. Alternatively, the data dictionary can be used to design a database in any other data management software you prefer.
ISARIC promotes local data hosting and can provide site support to achieve this. For sites that decide not to run their own data management software, ISARIC hosts a REDCap database in the United Kingdom that can be used by any site. Support and hosting are provided by ISARIC. Data ownership remains with those who enter the data.
Please contact data@isaric.org for support, to launch a database, host data, map to the ISARIC data model, or anything else we can assist with.
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STEP 4: Analyse your data
ISARIC has a set of analytic tools called VERTEX, designed to perform analyses using ISARIC's data structure. VERTEX uses reproducible analytical pipelines to generate tables and visualisations using Python code, and displays this information in a web application dashboard.
VERTEX is openly available and can be used by anyone who collects data using the ISARIC structure to quickly produce analytic outputs on your data.
You can use the instructions below to get started and contact data@isaric.org for support.
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For more information or support, contact ISARIC's Global Support Centre at the Pandemic Sciences Institute, University of Oxford: data@isaric.org.