Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Annals of Infectious Diseases and Therapy and its publisher, Somato Publications, are committed to integrity in scholarly publishing. This statement follows the COPE Core Practices and the ICMJE Recommendations, and applies to everyone involved in publishing with the journal: authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher.

1. Duties of authors

  • Originality. Submit only original work. Any use of the work or words of others must be cited. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable.
  • Accuracy. Present an accurate account of the work and an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data must be represented accurately; fabrication, falsification, and misleading image manipulation are misconduct.
  • Data access. Retain raw data and provide it to the editors on request, and share it publicly where the Data Sharing Policy requires.
  • Duplicate submission. Do not submit the same manuscript, or one describing essentially the same research, to more than one journal at a time. Do not republish work already published (see the Corrections and Retractions Policy for redundant publication).
  • Authorship. List as authors only those who meet the Authorship Policy criteria. Ghost, guest, and gift authorship are prohibited.
  • Disclosure. Declare all financial and non-financial conflicts of interest and all sources of funding.
  • Research ethics. Obtain and state ethical approval and informed consent as required by the Research Ethics Policy.
  • Errors. Notify the editor promptly of any significant error in a published article and cooperate in correcting or retracting it.

2. Duties of reviewers

  • Contribute to the editorial decision through objective, timely, constructive review.
  • Maintain confidentiality of the manuscript and the review.
  • Declare conflicts of interest and decline to review where they exist.
  • Identify relevant published work not cited, and alert the editor to any substantial similarity with other work or to ethical concerns.
  • Not use knowledge of the manuscript for personal advantage.

3. Duties of editors

  • Decide which manuscripts to publish based solely on academic merit, relevance to scope, and compliance with legal requirements on libel, copyright, and plagiarism.
  • Evaluate manuscripts without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, seniority, or institutional affiliation.
  • Keep submissions confidential and not use unpublished material for their own research without written consent of the authors.
  • Recuse themselves from manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest.
  • Respond to allegations of misconduct and pursue them according to COPE flowcharts, whether the article is under review or already published.
  • Publish corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern when warranted.
  • Ensure that commercial considerations, including Article Processing Charges and advertising, have no influence on editorial decisions.

4. Duties of the publisher

Somato Publications supports the editors in upholding these standards, provides the technical infrastructure for review and permanent archiving, and does not interfere in editorial decisions. The publisher ensures that the journal's business model (Article Processing Charges) is separated from editorial judgement.

5. Handling allegations of misconduct

Concerns may be raised by anyone, in confidence, to editor@somatopub.com. The journal follows COPE guidance:

  1. The Editor-in-Chief acknowledges receipt and makes an initial assessment.
  2. The authors are given an opportunity to respond.
  3. Where necessary, the authors' institution or funder is asked to investigate.
  4. Outcomes may include: no action; a correction; an expression of concern; retraction; a ban on future submissions for a defined period; notification of the authors' institution.

Investigations are conducted fairly, confidentially, and without prejudgement. Anonymous allegations are considered if they are specific and verifiable.

6. Research misconduct

Includes, but is not limited to: fabrication; falsification; plagiarism; image manipulation that misrepresents results; undisclosed conflicts of interest; duplicate or redundant publication; citation manipulation; authorship for sale; peer-review manipulation (including fake reviewer identities); and research on humans or animals without appropriate approval.

7. Citation manipulation

Editors and reviewers must not require authors to cite the journal or their own work as a condition of acceptance. Authors must not add irrelevant citations to inflate the citation count of any person or journal.

Last updated: 29 September 2026