In the absence of established standards we designed a methodology using elements of our previous work in 2004 [14, 15] and experiences of other groups [2, 3, 10, 11, 13] . Our multi-staged prioritization process included compilation of the list of pathogens to be prioritized, development of evaluation criteria, weighting of criteria and scoring of the pathogens. The methodology was based on the core domain for good practices in setting priorities for research in health, such as legitimacy and fairness [3, 8] , and represents the further development of the work from 2004.