Editorial Policies

Editorial independence

Editorial decisions are taken by the handling editor on the reviewers' assessments. Editorial assessment and handling remain independent of the article processing charge, membership, commercial arrangements, and editorial or reviewing roles.

The handling editor retains decision authority and manages conflicts of interest independently from publisher, sales, and membership functions.

How manuscripts are reviewed

Model

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.

Screening and review

All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.

Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.

Decision criteria

Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.

Double-blind handling

When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.

For double-blind manuscripts, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors.

Confidentiality

A submitted manuscript is confidential. Editors and reviewers do not disclose its existence or content and do not use unpublished material in their own work.

After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.

Conflicts of interest and recusal

Authors

All authors declare competing interests and the role of every funder in study design, data collection, analysis and the decision to publish. A declaration is required whether or not an interest exists.

Editors

An editor does not handle a manuscript from their own institution, from a recent collaborator, or where any other interest could reasonably be seen to affect their judgment. The manuscript is reassigned to an editor without that conflict.

Manuscripts by an editor

Editor-authored manuscripts are handled independently. The editor-author receives reports and decisions only in the normal author capacity and has no privileged editorial access or role in handling the submission. Reviewer anonymity follows the selected review model.

Reviewers

Reviewers decline where they have a competing interest, and disclose any relationship that a reader might reasonably consider relevant.

Authorship and originality

Authorship criteria

Authorship requires a substantial contribution to the work, involvement in drafting or revising it, approval of the version submitted, and agreement to be accountable for it. Everyone meeting these criteria is listed; nobody who does not is. Contributions that do not meet them are acknowledged.

Credit for the study setting

Researchers based where the work was done are expected to appear in the author list when they meet the criteria, and the institutions that hosted the study are named.

Changes to authorship

Any addition, removal or reordering after submission requires the written agreement of every author and a stated reason.

Originality

A manuscript must be original, not published elsewhere, and not under consideration elsewhere. Submissions are screened for text overlap; a similarity report is read in context by an editor and is never an automatic decision.

Redundant publication

Dividing one study into several papers that add nothing individually, or republishing data already reported without saying so, is not accepted. Prior presentation as a conference abstract or a preprint is permitted and must be disclosed with its identifier.

Fabrication and manipulation

Fabricated or falsified data, and images altered in a way that changes what they show, are grounds for rejection or retraction. Original images and underlying data may be requested at any stage.

Human participants, trials and animals

Human participants

Studies involving people require approval from a named research-ethics committee and documented informed consent, reported with the approval reference. Where a study enrolls school-age children or works at community level, the community and administrative permissions obtained in the study setting are stated as well.

Consent to publish

Case reports and any image or detail that could identify a patient require written consent to publish. Consent is not implied by clinical consent to treatment.

Trial registration

Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.

Animal research

Work involving animals requires approval from the relevant institutional body, reports the approval reference, and follows ARRIVE.

Specimens, pathogens and vectors

These requirements follow from where tropical-disease research is done. They apply to every submission that involves field collection, clinical specimens or live pathogens.

Provenance and permissions

Clinical specimens, isolates and field-collected vectors are reported with their provenance, the collection permissions under which they were obtained, and the containment conditions under which they were handled.

Material across borders

Material moved between countries carries the transfer terms it was moved under, including any material-transfer agreement and, where applicable, access and benefit-sharing arrangements.

Biosafety

Work with pathogens states the containment level and the approvals under which it was carried out.

Outbreak data

Work using outbreak or surveillance data states the authority that holds the data and the terms under which it was released, and reports at a level of aggregation that cannot identify individuals.

Data availability and reporting standards

Data availability

Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.

The statement says where the data are, on what terms they can be obtained, and — where they cannot be shared — why.

Sequence and structural data

Pathogen and vector sequence data are deposited in a public repository and the accession numbers reported in the manuscript.

Reporting guidelines

Randomized trials follow CONSORT, observational studies STROBE, systematic reviews PRISMA, diagnostic-accuracy studies STARD, and animal studies ARRIVE.

Prevalence and surveillance work states its sampling frame, its case definition and the diagnostic method used to confirm it.

Privacy

Participant data are reported so that individuals cannot be identified, including through a combination of location, date and clinical detail.

Use of AI in writing, research and review

Authors

An AI tool cannot be an author: it cannot take responsibility for the work. Where such a tool has been used in preparing the manuscript or in the research itself, the use is disclosed and described, and the authors remain accountable for everything the manuscript states.

Reviewers

Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.

Editors

Editors follow the same restriction and do not enter manuscript content into a tool where confidentiality cannot be assured.

Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern

Correction

An error that affects the record is corrected in a linked, citable notice. The article is not silently altered.

Retraction

An article is retracted where the published findings cannot stand. The retraction notice states who issued it and why, and the article stays available and clearly marked so the record of what was published remains complete.

Expression of concern

Where a serious question has been raised and an investigation is not concluded, an expression of concern is published and linked to the article.

Permanence

Notices stay permanently available beside the article they concern and are never removed from the archive.

Appeals, complaints and misconduct

Appeals

An author who considers a decision mistaken may appeal in writing to the editorial office, stating the grounds and responding to the reviewers' points. An appeal is considered by an editor who did not take the original decision.

Concerns about published work

Anyone may raise a concern about a published article by writing to the editorial office with the specific points and any supporting evidence. The authors are given the opportunity to respond.

Misconduct

Allegations against authors, reviewers or editors are investigated by the journal with the publisher, and the relevant institution is contacted where the matter warrants it. The outcome determines whether a correction, a retraction or no change to the record follows.

Withdrawal before publication

Terms for withdrawing a manuscript before publication are on the Article processing charges page.

Editorial concerns go to [email protected].

Rights and research data

Copyright and license · Data archiving and permissions