NIGERIAN INFECTIOUS DISEASES SOCIETY

Manuscript types

JNIDS publishes the following manuscript types:

Original articles on infectious disease topics of broad interest. An original article refers to a paper containing original research results that have not been published elsewhere. Original article should not exceed 3,500 words in length and a structured abstract of no more than 250 words. A maximum of six (6) tables, four (4) figures, and 40 references are allowed. The word count is from the introduction through to the end of the discussion/conclusion and does not include abstract, tables, figures, acknowledgements or reference list.

Review Articles: Both narrative and systematic reviews on infectious disease topics of broad interest will be published. Review articles should not exceed 5,000 words in length and a structured abstract of not more than 250 words. A maximum of eight (8) tables, six (6) figures, and 50 references are allowed.

Brief (Short) Communications: brief reports of unusual or preliminary findings. Maximum length 1,500 words, unstructured abstract of 150 words, two tables, 1 figure, and a maximum of 15 references.

Case Reports (or Case Series) must be carefully documented and must be of importance because they describe unusual features or have important therapeutic implications. A maximum length of 1,200 words, an unstructured abstract of 100 words,and a maximum of 1 table or figure. The abstract should be unstructured. No more than 12 references.

Editorial: an opinion piece submitted by an academic editor providing an insight into a topic of interest to the readership of the issue. Editorials shall have a maximum length of 2,000 words (the word count limit includes title, abstract, tables, figures, and references list).

Letter to the Editor (Correspondence) relating to papers recently published in the journal, or containing brief reports of unusual or preliminary findings. A maximum of 500 words, one table or figure, and a maximum of five (5) references will be allowed.

Medical Images: JNIDS will occasionally welcome submission of high-quality, interesting and instructive images (such as clinical and other photographs, figures or diagrams, photomicrographs, or diagnostic imaging) on infectious diseases of immense public health importance or rare conditions. These should include no more than 200 words of explanatory text, and under 5 references. Appropriate permissions must be obtained from subjects for an identifiable clinical image to be published.

AUTHORSHIP

Definition of Authorship

As defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, authorship is based on the following criteria:

• 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.

Non-Author Contributors

Contributors who meet fewer than all four of the above criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors, but they should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section with a description of their contribution to the work as applicable.

Preparing your manuscript

Quick points:

• The acceptable file format is Microsoft word (DOC, DOCX)
• Use single line spacing
• Prepare the text using Times New Roman font size 12
• Include line and page numbering
• Do not use page breaks in your manuscript

The information below details the section headings that you should include in your manuscript and what information should be within each section.

Title page

The title page should:

• Present a title that concise and informative. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. As much as possible, a title should include information about the main outcome variable (such as in-hospital mortality, Hepatitis B virus seropositivity), population (such as people living with HIV, adult patients), study design (such as a cross-sectional study; a longitudinal study, a randomized controlled trial) and geographical location.
• List the full names and institutional affiliations for all authors. If a collaboration group or consortium is listed as an author, the names of the individuals who belong to the group will be listed on the manuscript’s Declaration section.
• A short running title
• Indicate the corresponding author, address, email and phone contact

The title page does not need to be uploaded as a separate file.

Abstract

The Abstract should not exceed 250 words. Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and must be spelt out in full at first use. Do not cite references or footnotes in the abstract. Unless where otherwise stated, the abstract should be structured, including the following separate sections:

• Background: the context and purpose of the study
• Methods: how the study was performed and statistical tests used
• Results: the main findings
• Conclusion: brief summary and potential implications

Key words: four to six keywords representing the main context of the article immediately after the abstract. The use of Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms is highly encouraged. Only abbreviations well-recognized in the field may be used under key words (for example HIV).

Abbreviations: Only well-recognized abbreviations are encouraged. If a term appears repeatedly, however, an abbreviation may be introduced parenthetically at the initial mention of the term and used thereafter in place of the term. Abbreviations of conventional or SI units of measurement may be used without introduction.

Manuscript Main Text

The manuscript main text should include an Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion.

Introduction

The introduction section should explain the background/rationale to the study, its aims, a summary of the existing literature and why this study was necessary or its contribution to the field.

Materials and Methods

The methods section should include:

• The design and setting of the study
• The characteristics of the study population/participants or description of materials
• A clear description of all processes, interventions and comparisons. Generic drug names should generally be used. When proprietary brands are used in research, include the brand names in parentheses.
• A statement on ethics approval and informed consent
• The type of statistical analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate

Results

This should include the findings of the study including, if appropriate, results of statistical analysis which must be included either in the text or as tables and figures.

Discussion

This section should discuss the implications of the findings in context of existing research and highlight limitations of the study. The conclusion should be written as the last paragraph under the discussion section.

Nomenclature and Units of Measurements

References to drugs
The generic name of a drug should be used as a general rule; however, the full name or the commercial name of the drug, as well as the name and location of the supplier, may be given in addition if appropriate.

Bacterial nomenclature
Microbes should be referred to by their scientific names according to the binomial system. When first mentioned, the name should be in full and written in italics e.g. “Staphylococcus aureus”. Thereafter, the genus should be abbreviated to its initial letter, e.g. “S. aureus”.

Units of Measurement

Symbols for units of measurement must comply with the Système International (SI). However, blood pressure should be expressed in mmHg and haemoglobin as g/dl.

Declarations

The declaration section should be placed after the discussion. The following sections must be contained under the 'Declarations' section:Competing interests, Funding, Authors' contributions, and Acknowledgements. The details of information to be included in these sub-sections are described below:

Competing interests

All financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared in this section.If you do not have any competing interests, please state "The authors declare that they have no competing interests" in this section.

Funding

All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared. List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements. For example, “This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers mmmm]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number xxxx]. If no funding has been provided for the research, please include the following sentence: “This research did not receive any specific funding”.

Authors' contributions

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section. Guidance and criteria for authorship can be found in our editorial policy. Please use initials to refer to each author's contribution in this section, for example: “AB and CD designed the research study. AB, CD, EF, GH, and IJ collected the research data. KL and MN analyzed the data. AB, CD, EF, and KL wrote the paper. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript”.

Acknowledgements

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article who does not meet the criteria for authorship including anyone who provided language help, writing assistance or proof reading services. It is the responsibility of authors to ensure that individuals so acknowledged are aware and have approved their being acknowledged.

Cover letter

Manuscripts must be accompanied by a cover letter stating that the “Author Guidelines” and “Journal Policies” have been adhered to and all authors approved the final version of the manuscript. Authors are also required to state the relevance of their article to the field. A statement that “the manuscript has not been published or currently under review in another journal” should be included. Please also note that authors should provide a list of 3 potential reviewers (as well as e-mail and affiliation) who are knowledgeable in the subject matter, have no conflict of interest, and are likely to agree to review the manuscript.

References

Authors should ensure that every reference cited in the text is also captured in the reference list (and vice versa). In-text citation should use superscript Arabic numerals, after a punctuation. Unpublished reports and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If unpublished works (e.g. a thesis) are included in the reference list, they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with “Unpublished report”. A reference can be cited as “in press”if the article has been accepted for publication.Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51–9. For less than six authors, list all authors and for more than six authors, only the first three should be listed followed by "et al."JNIDS will only accept Vancouver reference style. Examples are shown below.

Article within a journal

Ajayi AB. Prevalence of malaria parasitaemia among farmers in Abuja, Nigeria. J Nig Infect Dis Soc 2021;11:234-5.

Article within a journal by DOI

Mensah KM. Determinants of in-hospital mortality among patients admitted with COVID-19 in Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. J Nig Infect Dis Soc. 2021; doi:10.1007/s801090000086.

Book chapter, or an article within a book

Smith AB, James CC, Mark BO, et al.Biomarkers: the prognostic value in sepsis. In: Luke GH, Daniel JF, Mohammed KW, eds. Sepsis Review. London: Academic; 1990. p. 251-306.

Complete book, authored

Eze OO, AdelabuPO. Symptoms of common febrile illnesses: a guide for community healthcare workers. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Science; 1980.

Online document

The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). 90?90?90 the ambitious target to help end the AIDS epidemic. 2014. Available at: http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/90?90?90_en_0.pdf. Accessed 15 July 2019.

Preparing Figures

Figures should be placed at the end of the manuscript after references and before tables. Please follow the instructions below:

• Figures should be numbered and cited in the text in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Figure 1, Figure 2 etc.).Multi-panel figures (those with parts a, b, c, d etc.) should be submitted as a single composite file that contains all parts of the figure.
• Each figure must have a caption. The caption may be placed immediately below the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (max 15 words) and a descriptive legend (max 250 words). Explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
• Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures (or tables) that have previously been published elsewhere.Permission should be indicated in the figure legend, and the original source included in the reference list.
• Figures may be embedded in Microsoft word. In some occasions, figures may be provided in JPEG or TIFF formats.

Preparing Tables

Tables should be placed at the end of the manuscript after references. Please follow the instructions below:

• Tables should be numbered and cited in the text in sequence using Arabic numerals (i.e. Table 1, Table 2 etc.)
• Table titles (max 15 words) should be included above the table, and footnotes(max 250 words)when necessary should be included underneath the table.
• Color and shading should not be used. Parts of the table can be highlighted using superscript, numbering, lettering, symbols or bold text, the meaning of which should be explained in a table legend.
• Commas should not be used to indicate decimal values.
•  Units of measurement must be clearly indicated.