Eurosurveillance (online)

Eurosurveillance is a weekly electronic publication. It is published online every Thursday afternoon (with the exception of E-alerts). At the same time, an email update with links to the articles is sent to all subscribers.

Eurosurveillance print compilation

Four times a year, material from Eurosurveillance online is compiled and printed. This edition consists of most online articles, but does not include news and meeting reports. We maintain the print format of Eurosurveillance to give our readership a choice of media through which to receive our content.

Information on how to cite Eurosurveillance articles or to reprint material from Eurosurveillance can be found in the Editorial policy section of our homepage.

Rapid communications: Timely, authoritative reports on significant communicable disease findings and events with no more than 1,000 words, 10 references, and four illustrations (graphs or tables). Rapid communications are generally published within a few days of the text being received by the editorial team, but when necessary, publication can be arranged within hours of submission (see E-alerts). The articles undergo rapid independent peer-review by at least one expert in the field. Prompt dissemination of preliminary information about communicable disease events is an important part of public health action. Authors of rapid communications are encouraged to later submit fuller accounts to Eurosurveillance as a longer article.

Research articles: No more than 3,500 words, 30 references, and six illustrations (graphs or tables). Research articles provide original results from studies on any aspect of communicable disease epidemiology, prevention and control, including outbreak and surveillance reports. The articles should provide new data or insights of public health importance. Longer reports on national or international outbreaks should be submitted once the outbreak has been fully investigated and focus on new and unexpected aspects and on lessons learned. Surveillance articles should focus on epidemiological trends of a specific disease or group of diseases from a national or international surveillance system, but could also be an analysis of a surveillance system or a description of a new surveillance system.

Review articles: No more than 4,000 words, 80 references, and six illustrations (graphs or tables). Review articles provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art overview of issues of major public health importance within the field of communicable disease surveillance, prevention or control.

Euroroundups: No more than 3,500 words, 30 references, and six illustrations (graphs or tables). Euroroundups should provide an analysis of a specific aspect or function of communicable disease surveillance, prevention or control in at least five European countries, and present an in-depth comparison of systems and/or data.

Editorials: No more than 1,500 words, 20 references, and four illustrations (graphs or tables). Written by experts invited to comment on articles and special topics covered by Eurosurveillance.

Perspectives: No more than 2,000 words, 20 references, and four illustrations (graphs or tables). Perspectives provide an insightful analysis of practices, policies and guidance on communicable disease prevention and control, as well as guidance on major developments in the field of vaccines and immunisation.

News: No more than 600 words, with five or fewer references, and no illustrations. These are short public health news, either authored by the Eurosurveillance editorial team or commissioned by the team.

Meeting reports: No more than 2,000 words, with 10 or fewer references (including, when possible, links to full reports of conference activities), and no illustrations. Meeting reports should focus on content. Before submitting a meeting report, please contact the editorial team. (How to submit material).

Letters: No more than 600 words, with five or fewer references, and no illustrations. Letters are commenting on recent Eurosurveillance articles (both short and longer), and should be submitted within four weeks after the publication of the article in question.

E-alerts: short reports published to disseminate information about an important event that the editorial team feels should not wait until the next regular publication of Eurosurveillance. Subscribers are informed immediately by email of the entire text of the E-alert, which is posted on the website at the same time.

Submissions should conform to the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals as detailed in: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Med Educ. 1999; 33(1):66-78 or: http://www.icmje.org/index.html

All submissions should be sent as an attachment by email, with ‘Submission’ in the subject line, to: eurosurveillance@ecdc.europa.eu. The email should indicate the article category, as described above, and verify that all authors have seen and approved the final manuscript. If you are unsure which category your submission best falls into, please state this in your email. Authors should also disclose any information that could present a potential conflict of interest when sending submissions to Eurosurveillance, or explicitly state that there is none.

Furthermore, authors are requested to sign a written agreement, regarding copyright when submitting an article for the first time, applying to all present and future contributions submitted to the journal. The agreement should be sent to the Eurosurveillance office by fax or mail.

We prefer authors to send their submissions in English, although we will try to arrange translations of short articles if the authors cannot confidently write in English. Please contact the editorial team in such a case. If you want to submit a meeting report, please contact the editorial team to discuss it first.

Articles should be written in clear, scientific language that is free of jargon. Avoid abbreviations when possible and define them when you first use them. Please use United Kingdom English spelling.

Research articles should usually follow the IMRaD format (Introduction, Method, Results and Discussion and conclusion), although this will depend on the contents of the article. Longer articles may need subheadings within some sections (especially the Results and Discussion sections) to clarify their content. Subheadings should be clearly distinguishable, but not numbered.

• Abstract: a short unstructured summary (150 to 200 words) of the article’s content and the main findings, briefly describing the main subject being addressed, the methodology, the principal results, and the main conclusion. A maximum of eight keywords suitable for indexing should be provided.
• Introduction: explaining the reasons and aim of the article, and putting the topic in its perspective, through the judicious use of references.
• Methods: methodology used, presented in a clear way, with relevant references, where appropriate.
• Results: guiding the reader through all the main findings of the investigation. If tables and figures are provided, the text should shortly describe and summarise the content, but not unnecessarily repeat the information. Any illustration together with its legend should provide the reader with enough information to understand it, without referring to explanations in the text.
• Discussion and conclusion: the European and international relevance should clearly be discussed in this section with relevant references. A short conclusion (without heading) with clear perspectives - should end the manuscript.

Other categories of articles (Review articles, Euroroundups, Editorials, Perspectives, Rapid communications, News, Meeting reports, and Letters) may instead use section headings as appropriate.

Titles of articles

Titles should be interesting, informative and accurate. Titles should normally not exceed six signifying words. In outbreak and surveillance reports, the place/country and the concerned period should appear in the title. The editors reserve the right to change the original title, although only after the authors’ approval.

Tables and Figures

Tables should be easy to understand, and should be sent in Word or Excel format. Tables can be inserted into the manuscript, or sent as separate files. In the rapid communications qualifying footnotes should be avoided.

Figures and Illustrations (diagrams, maps and photographs) should be sent to the editorial team in a separate file. If possible, please use .xls (Microsoft Excel) or .ai (Adobe Illustrator). Photographs can be sent in .tif or .eps format, or, if not possible, in high quality .jpg. Please give the source of your data for tables and figures (e.g. your institute).

References

Number the citations in the order of appearance in the text. Place reference numbers in square brackets [1] in the text. References cited in a table or figure legend should be numbered so that they will be in sequence with references cited in the text. If you include personal communications, they should include the name of the person and the date the communication took place.

Please format your references in the Vancouver style:
#. Author of article AA, Author of article BB, Author of article CC. Title of article. Abbreviated Title of Journal. Year;vol(issue):page number(s).

For example:
1. Geck MJ, Yoo S, Wang JC. Assessment of cervical ligamentous injury in trauma patients using MRI. J Spinal Disord. 2001;14(5):371-7.

If there are more than six authors, list the first six authors followed by et al. For example:
1. Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002;935(1-2):40-6.

More samples of reference citation formats can be seen at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html

Authors and Acknowledgements

All listed authors should have contributed significantly to the article and be able to account for its content. We do not limit the number of authors, but for the rapid communications it may be more appropriate to list the names of people who have not contributed directly to the writing of the article under ‘Acknowledgements’. You may acknowledge anyone who has helped you with any aspect of the report, but it is always the corresponding author’s responsibility to obtain permission from anyone being acknowledged.

Please include complete information about each author (full name, affiliation, and the name of the institution, city and country in which the work was done). Clearly identify and provide phone number, fax number and email address for the corresponding author.

It is possible to provide a collective name as an author (working group, DSN, etc.), and this will appear as such in PubMed/MEDLINE indexation.

If clearly motivated from a scientific or public health perspective, Eurosurveillance encourages authors to submit material that has previously been published in a language other than English, if the editors and authors think that dissemination in English will be beneficial to a wider readership that cannot read the primary publication or have limited access to it. Secondary publication will mainly be considered in case of short articles on content that has previously been covered in the bulletins of the national surveillance institutes. Longer articles are usually not accepted for secondary publication. Eurosurveillance aims to add value to all secondary publication, usually by widening the discussion to include other European countries, and including additional references.

It should be clear from the submission that it is secondary publication, and permission must have been sought in advance from the editors of the primary publication. The material will be clearly labelled in Eurosurveillance as reprinted, translated and/or adapted from the primary publication, with a reference and, where possible, web link, to the original material.

Prospective authors should follow the guidelines in the section of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://www.icmje.org/#over) entitled “III.D.3. Acceptable Secondary Publication” (updated October 2004), keeping in mind in particular that “...Secondary publication for various other reasons, in the same or another language, especially in other countries, is justifiable, and can be beneficial…”

Secondary publication goes through the normal Eurosurveillance review process.

Competing interests might arise if a professional judgment concerning a scientific publication is influenced by a secondary interest i.e. financial gain. We therefore ask the authors to disclose any conflict of interest related to the manuscript. Furthermore authors are asked to indicate the financial support (funding) received in relation to the article published.

The editorial team should be informed immediately of any errata or corrections to be published. Corrections are published as soon as possible.

Eurosurveillance online: Corrections are made to the original article online, together with an editorial note explaining the nature and date of the correction. The correction is also announced in the next online release to be published.

Print compilation: Corrections are made in the subsequent issue of the print journal.

Rapid communications

All rapid communications go through a fast peer review process. The text is read and edited by the editorial team, and then passed to an expert in the field. The reviewer is always a person working outside the team or the department of the author(s), and is usually from a different institute and/or country. Both the authors’ and the reviewer’s identity are kept confidential. Occasionally, a rapid communication may be sent to more than one reviewer.

Comments from the reviewer are usually sent back to the editorial team within six to 48 hours, and the reviewer’s comments are passed back to the author. A revised submission is sent by the author to the editorial team, usually within 24 to 48 hours. If the editorial team judges that the reviewer’s questions have not been answered satisfactorily, the text may be sent to the reviewer a second time.

The text is always edited further by the editorial team. A final copy is sent to the author for approval, within a given time-frame.

News, letters, editorials and meeting reports

These article categories are not peer-reviewed.

Other articles

All other submitted articles, whether commissioned or spontaneously submitted, are peer-reviewed by at least two independent experts. During the review process, both the authors’ and the reviewers’ names are kept confidential. After the review, the decision to accept an article for publication or to reject it is made by the editorial team. Authors are informed of the decision, mostly within two months of submission. All the reviewers’ comments and suggestions are collected by the editorial team and then sent to the authors as guidelines for a second draft. A detailed, item to item, response to these comments must be submitted with the revised second draft. The invitation to submit a revised manuscript does not imply that the manuscript will eventually be accepted for publication.

After acceptance, online publication usually takes place within one to two months, although this may be longer if the article is published as part of a special thematic issue. During this time the article is further edited for clarity and proofread, and the final version sent back to the corresponding author for approval. The author will also be informed of the online publication date.

If you have any questions about Eurosurveillance, please contact our editorial team at eurosurveillance@ecdc.europa.eu