For Authors

Accepted File Formats

Authors must use the Microsoft Word Template. Using the template file will substantially shorten the time to complete copy-editing and publication of accepted manuscripts. The total amount of data for all files must not exceed 120 MB.

• Microsoft Word: Manuscripts prepared in Microsoft Word must be converted into a single file before submission. Please insert your graphics (schemes, figures, etc.) in the main text after the paragraph of its first citation.

Disclaimer: Usage of these templates is exclusively intended for submission to the journal for peer-review, and strictly limited to this purpose and it cannot be used for posting online on preprint servers or other websites.

General Considerations

• Research manuscripts should comprise:
  • Front page: Title, Author list, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords
  • Research manuscript sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions (optional).
  • Supplementary data, figures and tables: Supplementary Materials, Acknowledgments, Author Contributions, Conflicts of Interest, References.
• Graphical Abstract: A graphical abstract (GA) is an image that appears alongside the text abstract in the Table of Contents. In addition to summarizing content, it should represent the topic of the article in an attention-grabbing way.

The GA should be a high-quality illustration or diagram in any of the following formats: PNG, JPEG, EPS, SVG, PSD or AI. Written text in a GA should be clear and easy to read, using one of the following fonts: Times, Arial, Courier, Helvetica, or Calibri.

The minimum required size for the GA is 560 × 1100 pixels (height × width). When submitting larger images, please make sure to keep to the same ratio.

• Acronyms/Abbreviations/Initialisms should be defined the first time they appear in each of three sections: the abstract; the main text; the first figure or table. When defined for the first time, the acronym/abbreviation/initialism should be added in parentheses after the written-out form.
• SI Units (International System of Units) use is preferred.
• Guidelines and standards: Metro Infectious Disease Consultants follows standards and guidelines for certain types of research. See linked document for further information.

Front Page

These sections should appear in all manuscript types

• Title: The title of your manuscript should be concise, specific, and relevant.
• Author List and Affiliations: Authors’ full first and last names must be provided. The initials of any middle names can be added. The PubMed/MEDLINE standard format is used for affiliations: complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country. At least one author should be designated as corresponding author, and his or her email address and other details should be included at the end of the affiliation section.
• Abstract: The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum.
• Keywords: Three to ten pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.

Research Manuscript Sections

• Introduction: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses being tested. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully, and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to clinicians working outside the topic of the paper.
• Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available.
• Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.
• Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible, and limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned.
• Conclusions: This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex.
• Patents: This section is not mandatory but may be added if there are patents resulting from the work reported in this manuscript.

Supplementary Data, Figures and Tables

• Supplementary Materials: Describe any supplementary material published online alongside the manuscript (figure, tables, video, spreadsheets, etc.). Please indicate the name and title of each element as follows Figure S1: title, Table S1: title, etc.
• Funding: All sources of funding of the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs.
  Please add: “This research received no external funding” or “This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]”. Check carefully that the details given are accurate and use the standard spelling of funding agency names at https://search.crossref.org/funding, any errors may affect your future funding.
• Acknowledgments: In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind.
• Author Contributions: Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND has approved the submitted version (and version substantially edited by journal staff that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature.
  For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used “Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”, please turn to the Credit taxonomy for the term explanation. “Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work. Please read the section concerning the criteria to qualify for authorship carefully“.
• Institutional Review Board Statement: In this section, please add the Institutional Review Board Statement and approval number for studies involving humans or animals. Please note that the Editorial Office might ask you for further information. Please add “The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of NAME OF INSTITUTE (protocol code XXX and date of approval).” OR “Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification).” OR “Not applicable” for studies not involving humans or animals. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans or animals.
• Informed Consent Statement: Any research article describing a study involving humans should contain this statement. Please add “Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.” OR “Patient consent was waived due to REASON (please provide a detailed justification).” OR “Not applicable” for studies not involving humans. You might also choose to exclude this statement if the study did not involve humans.
  Written informed consent for publication must be obtained on prospective studies from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). Please state “Written informed consent has been obtained from the patient(s) to publish this paper” if applicable.
• Data Availability Statement: In this section, please provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. Please refer to suggested Data Availability Statements in section “Metro Infectious Disease Consultants Research Data Policies”. If you prefer to not report your data publicly, please state this in your article. You might choose to exclude this statement if the study did not report any data.
• Conflicts of Interest: Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interest that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there is no conflict of interest, please state “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” Any role of the funding sponsors in the choice of research project; design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section. If there is no role, please state “The sponsors had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study”. For more details, please see Conflict of Interest.
• References: References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, Reference Manager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, computer code and other citable research material. If available online, you may use reference style number nine below.
• Citations and References in Supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the main text and in the reference list.

In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105).

The reference list should include the full title, as recommended by the AMA style guide.

References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work:

Journal Articles:
1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.

Books and Book Chapters:
2. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196.

3. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154–196.

Unpublished work, submitted work, personal communication:
4. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. status (unpublished; manuscript in preparation).

5. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C. Title of Unpublished Work. Abbreviated Journal Name stage of publication (under review; accepted; in press).

6. Author 1, A.B. (University, City, State, Country); Author 2, C. (Institute, City, State, Country). Personal communication, Year.

Conference Proceedings:
7. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D.; Author 3, E.F. Title of Presentation. In Title of the Collected Work (if available), Proceedings of the Name of the Conference, Location of Conference, Country, Date of Conference; Editor 1, Editor 2, Eds. (if available); Publisher: City, Country, Year (if available); Abstract Number (optional), Pagination (optional).

Thesis:
8. Author 1, A.B. Title of Thesis. Level of Thesis, Degree-Granting University, Location of University, Date of Completion.

Websites:
9. Title of Site. Available online: URL (accessed on Day Month Year).
Unlike published works, websites may change over time or disappear, so we encourage you create an archive of the cited website using a service such as WebCite. Archived websites should be cited using the link provided as follows:

10. Title of Site. URL (archived on Day Month Year).

Preparing Figures, Schemes and Tables

• File for Figures and Schemes must be provided during submission in a single zip archive and at a sufficiently high resolution (minimum 1000 pixels width/height, or a resolution of 300 dpi or higher). Common formats are accepted; however, TIFF, JPEG, EPS, and PDF are preferred.
• PPID can publish multimedia files in articles or as supplementary materials. Please contact the editorial office for further information.
• All Figures, Schemes and Tables should be inserted into the main text close to their first citation and must be numbered following their number of appearance (Figure 1, Scheme I, Figure 2, Scheme II, Table 1, etc.).
• All Figures, Schemes and Tables should have a short explanatory title and caption.
• All table columns should have an explanatory heading. To facilitate the copy-editing of larger tables, smaller fonts may be used, but no less than 8 pt. in size. Authors should use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables.
• Authors are encouraged to prepare figures and schemes in color (RGB at 8-bit per channel). There is no additional cost for publishing full color graphics.

Supplementary Materials, Data Deposit and Software Source Code

Metro Infectious Disease Consultants Research Data Policies

Metro Infectious Disease Consultants is committed to supporting open scientific exchange and enabling our authors to achieve best practices in sharing and archiving research data. We encourage all authors of articles published to share their research data. Data sharing policies concern the minimal dataset that supports the central findings of a published study. Generated data should be publicly available and cited in accordance with journal guidelines.

Where ethical, legal or privacy issues are present, data should not be shared. The authors should make any limitations clear in the Data Availability Statement upon submission. Authors should ensure that data shared are in accordance with consent provided by participants on the use of confidential data.

Data Availability Statements provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study.

Below are suggested Data Availability Statements:

• Data available in a publicly accessible repository
  The data presented in this study are openly available in [repository name e.g., Fig Share] at [doi], reference number [reference number].
• Data available in a publicly accessible repository that does not issue DOIs
  Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: [link/accession number]
• Data available on request due to restrictions eg privacy or ethical
  The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to [insert reason here]
• 3rd Party Data
  Restrictions apply to the availability of these data. Data was obtained from [third party] and are available [from the authors / at URL] with the permission of [third party].
• Data sharing not applicable
  No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.
• Data is contained within the article or supplementary material
  The data presented in this study are available in [insert article or supplementary material here]

Data citation:

• [dataset] Authors. Year. Dataset title; Data repository or archive; Version (if any); Persistent identifier (e.g., DOI).

Computer Code and Software

For work where novel computer code was developed, authors should release the code either by depositing in a recognized, public repository such as GitHub or uploading as supplementary information to the publication. The name, version, corporation, and location information for all software used should be clearly indicated. Please include all the parameters used to run software/programs analyses.

Supplementary Material

Additional data and files can be uploaded as “Supplementary Files” during the manuscript submission process. The supplementary files will also be available to the referees as part of the peer-review process. Any file format is acceptable; however, we recommend that common, non-proprietary formats are used where possible.

References in Supplementary Files

Citations and References in Supplementary files are permitted provided that they also appear in the reference list of the main text.

Unpublished Data

Restrictions on data availability should be noted during submission and in the manuscript. “Data not shown” should be avoided: authors are encouraged to publish all observations related to the submitted manuscript as Supplementary Material. “Unpublished data” intended for publication in a manuscript that is either planned, “in preparation” or “submitted” but not yet accepted, should be cited in the text and a reference should be added in the References section. “Personal Communication” should also be cited in the text and reference added in the References section. (see also the MDPI reference list and citations style guide).

Remote Hosting and Large Data Sets

Data may be deposited with specialized service providers or institutional/subject repositories, preferably those that use the DataCite mechanism. Large data sets and files greater than 60 MB must be deposited in this way. For a list of other repositories specialized in scientific and experimental data, please consult databib.org or re3data.org. The data repository name, link to the data set (URL) and accession number, doi or handle number of the data set must be provided in the paper.

Research and Publication Ethics

Research Ethics

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting on research that involves human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the investigations were carried out following the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013. According to point 23 of this declaration, an approval from an ethics committee should have been obtained before undertaking the research. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’ of the article. Data relating to individual participants must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom). Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

Example of an ethical statement: “All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code).”

A written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients who can be identified (including by the patients themselves). Patients’ initials or other personal identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting to PPID. Patient details must be anonymized as far as possible, e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation where they are not relevant to the conclusions. A template permission form is available to download. A blank version of the form used to obtain permission (without the patient names or signature) must be uploaded with your submission.

You may refer to our sample form and provide an appropriate form after consulting with your affiliated institution. Alternatively, you may provide a detailed justification of why informed consent is not necessary. For the purposes of publishing in PPID, a consent, permission, or release form should include unlimited permission for publication in all formats (including print, electronic, and online), in sublicensed and reprinted versions (including translations and derived works), and in other works and products under open access license. To respect patients’ and any other individual’s privacy, please do not send signed forms. The journal reserves the right to ask authors to provide signed forms if necessary.

Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research

The editors will require that the benefits potentially derived from any research causing harm to animals are significant in relation to any cost endured by animals, and that procedures followed are unlikely to cause offense to the majority of readers. Authors should particularly ensure that their research complies with the commonly accepted ‘3Rs’:

• Replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible,
• Reduction in number of animals used, and
• Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize the harm to animals.

Any experimental work must also have been conducted in accordance with relevant national legislation on the use of animals for research. For further guidance authors should refer to the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures [1].

Manuscripts containing original descriptions of research conducted in experimental animals must contain details of approval by a properly constituted research ethics committee. As a minimum, the project identification code, date of approval and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Institutional Review Board Statement’.

PPID endorses the ARRIVE guidelines (www.nc3rs.org.uk/ARRIVE) for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers can use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, which can be found at www.nc3rs.org.uk/ARRIVEchecklist.

1. Home Office. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures. Available online: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc8889/hc01/0107/0107.pdf.

Clinical Trials Registration

Registration

Metro Infectious Disease Consultants follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which require and recommend registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication.

Purely observational studies do not require registration. A clinical trial not only refers to studies that take place in a hospital or involve pharmaceuticals, but also refer to all studies which involve participant randomization and group classification in the context of the intervention under assessment.

Authors are strongly encouraged to pre-register clinical trials with an international clinical trial register and cite a reference to the registration in the abstract and Methods section. Suitable databases include clinicaltrials.gov, the EU Clinical Trials Register and those listed by the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

Approval to conduct a study from an independent local, regional, or national review body is not equivalent to prospective clinical trial registration. Metro Infectious Disease Consultants reserves the right to decline any paper without trial registration for further peer-review. However, if the study protocol has been published before the enrolment, the registration can be waived with correct citation of the published protocol.

CONSORT Statement

Metro Infectious Disease Consultants requires a completed CONSORT 2010 checklist and flow diagram as a condition of submission when reporting the results of a randomized trial. Templates for these can be found here or on the CONSORT website (http://www.consort-statement.org) which also describes several CONSORT checklist extensions for different designs and types of data beyond two group parallel trials. At minimum, your article should report the content addressed by each item of the checklist.

Sex and Gender in Research

We encourage our authors to follow the ‘Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER – guidelines’ and to include sex and gender considerations where relevant. Authors should use the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances) carefully in order to avoid confusing both terms. Article titles and/or abstracts should indicate clearly what sex(es) the study applies to. Authors should also describe in the background, whether sex and/or gender differences may be expected; report how sex and/or gender were accounted for in the design of the study; provide disaggregated data by sex and/or gender, where appropriate; and discuss respective results. If a sex and/or gender analysis was not conducted, the rationale should be given in the Discussion. We suggest that our authors consult the full guidelines before submission.

Borders and Territories

Potential disputes over borders and territories may have relevance for authors in describing their research or in an author or editor correspondence address and should be respected. Content decisions are an editorial matter and where there is a potential or perceived dispute or complaint, the editorial team will attempt to find a resolution that satisfies parties involved.

Metro Infectious Disease Consultants stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Publication Ethics Statement

The editors of this journal enforce a rigorous peer-review process together with strict ethical policies and standards to ensure to add high quality scientific works to the field of scholarly publication. Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and the like, do arise. The editors of PPID take such publishing ethics issues very seriously and are trained to proceed in such cases with a zero tolerance policy.

Authors wishing to publish their papers in PPID must abide to the following:

• Any facts that might be perceived as a possible conflict of interest of the author(s) must be disclosed in the paper prior to submission.
• Authors should accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion of the significance of their findings.
• Data and methods used in the research need to be presented in sufficient detail in the paper, so that other researchers can replicate the work.
• Raw data should preferably be publicly deposited by the authors before submission of their manuscript. Authors need to at least have the raw data readily available for presentation to the referees and the editors of the journal, if requested. Authors need to ensure appropriate measures are taken so that raw data is retained in full for a reasonable time after publication.
• Simultaneous submission of manuscripts to more than one journal is not tolerated.
• Republishing content that is not novel is not tolerated (for example, an English translation of a paper that is already published in another language will not be accepted).
• If errors and inaccuracies are found by the authors after publication of their paper, they need to be promptly communicated to the editors of this journal so that appropriate actions can be taken. Please refer to our policy regarding Updating Published Papers.
• Your manuscript should not contain any information that has already been published. If you include already published figures or images, please obtain the necessary permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license. For further information, see the Rights and Permissions page.
• Plagiarism, data fabrication and image manipulation are not tolerated.
  • Plagiarism is not acceptable in PPID submissions.

Plagiarism includes copying text, ideas, images, or data from another source, even from your own publications, without giving any credit to the original source.

Reuse of text that is copied from another source must be between quotes and the original source must be cited. If a study’s design or the manuscript’s structure or language has been inspired by previous works, these works must be explicitly cited.

If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may publish a correction or retract the paper.

• Image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in any way that could lead to misinterpretation of the information provided by the original image.

Irregular manipulation includes: 1) introduction, enhancement, moving, or removing features from the original image; 2) grouping of images that should obviously be presented separately (e.g., from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels); or 3) modifying the contrast, brightness or color balance to obscure, eliminate or enhance some information.

If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed during the peer review process, we may reject the manuscript. If irregular image manipulation is identified and confirmed after publication, we may correct or retract the paper.

Our in-house editors will investigate any allegations of publication misconduct and may contact the authors’ institutions or funders if necessary. If evidence of misconduct is found, appropriate action will be taken to correct or retract the publication. Authors are expected to comply with the best ethical publication practices when publishing with Metro Infectious Disease Consultants.

Citation Policy

Authors should ensure that where material is taken from other sources (including their own published writing) the source is clearly cited and that where appropriate permission is obtained.

Authors should not engage in excessive self-citation of their own work.

Authors should not copy references from other publications if they have not read the cited work.

Authors should not preferentially cite their own or their friends’, peers’, or institution’s publications.

Authors should not cite advertisements or advertorial material.

Reviewer Suggestions

During the submission process, three potential reviewers with the appropriate expertise to review the manuscript should be suggested. The editors may or may not use these referees. Detailed contact information (address, homepage, phone, e-mail address) for suggested reviewers should be provided. The proposed referees should neither be current collaborators of the co-authors nor have published with any of the co-authors of the manuscript within the last five years. Proposed reviewers should be from different institutions to the authors. Appropriate Editorial Board members of the journal can be suggested as potential reviewers.

English Corrections

To facilitate proper peer-reviewing of your manuscript, it is essential that it is submitted in grammatically correct English. Advice on some specific language points can be found here.

If you are not a native English speaker, we recommend that you have your manuscript professionally edited before submission or read by a native English-speaking colleague.

Preprints and Conference Papers

PPID accepts submissions that have previously been made available as preprints provided that they have not undergone peer review. A preprint is a draft version of a paper made available online before submission to a journal.

Expanded and high-quality conference papers can be considered as articles if they fulfill the following requirements: (1) the paper should be expanded to the size of a research article; (2) the conference paper should be cited and noted on the first page of the paper; (3) if the authors do not hold the copyright of the published conference paper, authors should seek the appropriate permission from the copyright holder; (4) authors are asked to disclose that it is conference paper in their cover letter and include a statement on what has been changed compared to the original conference paper. PPID does not publish pilot studies or studies with inadequate statistical power.

Authorship

Metro Infectious Disease Consultants follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines which state that, in order to qualify for authorship of a manuscript, the following criteria should be observed:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. More detailed guidance on authorship is given by the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Any change to the author list should be approved by all authors including any who have been removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication. We reserve the right to request confirmation that all authors meet the authorship conditions.

Reviewers Recommendation

Authors can recommend potential reviewers. Journal editors will check to make sure there are no conflicts of interest before contacting those reviewers, and will not consider those with competing interests. Reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest. Authors can also enter the names of potential peer reviewers they wish to exclude from consideration in the peer review of their manuscript, during the initial submission progress. The editorial team will respect these requests so long as this does not interfere with the objective and thorough assessment of the submission.

Editorial Independence

Lack of Interference with Editorial Decisions

Editorial independence is of utmost importance and Metro Infectious Disease Consultants does not interfere with editorial decisions. All articles published by Metro Infectious Disease Consultants are peer reviewed and assessed by our independent editorial boards, and Metro Infectious Disease Consultants staff are not involved in decisions to accept manuscripts. When making an editorial decision, we expect the academic editor to make their decision based only upon:

• The suitability of selected reviewers;
• Adequacy of reviewer comments and author response;
• Overall scientific quality of the paper.

In all of our journals, in every aspect of operation, Metro Infectious Disease Consultants policies are informed by the mission to make science and research findings open and accessible as widely and rapidly as possible.

Editors and Editorial Staff as Authors

Editorial staff or editors shall not be involved in processing their own academic work. Submissions authored by editorial staff/editors will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author. Journal staff are not involved in the processing of their own work submitted to PPID.

Conflict of Interests

According to The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “Authors should avoid entering into agreements with study sponsors, both for-profit and non-profit, that interfere with authors’ access to all of the study’s data or that interfere with their ability to analyze and interpret the data and to prepare and publish manuscripts independently when and where they choose.”

All authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include but are not limited to financial interests (such as membership, employment, consultancies, stocks/shares ownership, honoraria, grants or other funding, paid expert testimonies and patent-licensing arrangements) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, personal beliefs).

Authors can disclose potential conflicts of interest via the online submission system during the submission process. Declarations regarding conflicts of interest can also be collected via the Metro Infectious Disease Consultants disclosure form. The corresponding author must include a summary statement in the manuscript in a separate section “Conflicts of Interest” placed just before the reference list. The statement should reflect all the collected potential conflict of interest disclosures in the form.

See below for examples of disclosures:

Conflicts of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stocks in Company Y. Author C has been involved as a consultant and expert witness in Company Z. Author D is the inventor of patent X.

If no conflicts exist, the authors should state:

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review

Initial Checks

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a professional in-house Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal, including those for human and animal experimentation. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief.

Peer-Review

All research articles, and most other article types, undergo peer review. This involves review by at least two independent, expert peer reviewers. All submissions are first reviewed for completeness and only then sent to be assessed by an Editor who will decide whether they are suitable for peer review. Where an Editor is on the author list or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to oversee peer review. Editors take peer-reviewed reports into account when making decisions but are not obliged to follow the recommendations. If a concern is raised by any peer reviewer or the Editor, the manuscript may be rejected. Authors are provided with peer review reports along with the editorial decision on their manuscript.

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. A single-blind review is applied, where authors' identities are known to reviewers. Peer review comments are confidential and will only be disclosed with the express agreement of the reviewer.

In the case of regular submissions, in-house assistant editors will invite experts, including recommendations by an academic editor. These experts may also include Editorial Board Members and Guest Editors of the journal. Potential reviewers suggested by the authors may also be considered.

Peer review selection is based on expertise in the field, conflicts of interest, and ongoing review performance.

Peer review reports should offer constructive critical assessments of the authors' work, specifically regarding the suitability of the methods employed, the accuracy of the results, and the extent to which the conclusions are substantiated by the findings.

Editors are required to independently verify the contact details of reviewers recommended by authors or other third parties. Institutional email addresses should be utilized to invite peer reviewers when possible. Each manuscript is required to be evaluated by at least one non-recommended reviewer.

Publication Details

Turnaround time to receive response from the editorial team on submissions for all articles will be on average 15-20 business days unless a fast-track has been chosen

Cost:

Providers not in training (Attendings, pharmacists, etc)

• $0 per original article (i.e. original research, review article, meta analysis)
• $0 per case report
• $0 Letter to the editor

Students, Residents, or Fellows of medicine or pharmacy

• Free submission

PPID is pleased to offer a privileged submission track in which all articles will be reviewed within 10 business days

• $0 per original article (I.e. original research, review article, meta analysis)
• $0 per case report
• $0 Letter to the editor

Article Types:

Original Articles: reports clinically relevant investigations or observations within the journals scope

Word limit: 4000 words (excluding abstract, supplementary materials, and references) —minimum word limit is 2000 words

Tables/figures/images: 5 or fewer

Review Articles: reviews topics that are clinically affiliated with private practice infections disease

Word limit: 4000 words (excluding abstract, supplementary materials, and references)—minimum word limit is 2000 words

Tables/figures/images: 5 or fewer

Case Reports: present unusual or interesting cases that include a problem, a solution and a teaching perspective

Novel teaching cases that have an education point regarding an ID-related topic. Photos, microbiology, pathology, or other patient related data is strongly suggested as long as appropriate patient consent and/or redacted has been done.

Letter to the Editor: this is a targeted way in which authors can respond directly to literature that has been published recently within the journal.

Word limit: 2500 words (excluding abstract, supplementary materials, and references)—minimum word limit is 500 words