The Journal of Infection publishes original papers on all aspects of infection - clinical, microbiological and epidemiological. The Journal seeks to bring together knowledge from all specialties involved in infection research and clinical practice, and present the best work in the ever-changing field of infection.

Each issue brings you Editorials that describe current or controversial topics of interest, high quality Reviews to keep you in touch with the latest developments in specific fields of interest, an Epidemiology section reporting studies in the hospital and the general community, and a lively correspondence section.

The Journal of Infection will consider for publication an original article, review, or letter to the Editor on any aspect of infection written concisely in English provided it is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

This journal does not encourage resubmission of rejected papers.
Authors must comply fully with these instructions. These guidelines generally follow the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" The complete document appears at http://www.icmje.org.

Online Submission
Manuscripts by online submission only. Submit your manuscript at http://ees.elsevier.com/yjinf/. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Visit (http://www.elsevier.com/authors) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the Author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail. The above represents a very brief outline of this form of submission. It can be advantageous to print this "Guide for Authors" section from the site for reference in the subsequent stages of article preparation.

Online-only publication
The Journal of Infection is now offering an online-only option for original scientific work. The authors of papers accepted for publication may be offered either (i) print and online publication or (ii) online-only publication. Offers will be made at the discretion of the Editor. For further details please refer to the editorial published in the journal (J Infect 2006; 53: 47).

Ethics
Work on human beings that is submitted to Journal of Infection should comply with the principles laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki; Recommendations guiding physicians in biomedical research involving human subjects. Adopted by the 18th World Medical Assembly, Helsinki, Finland, June 1964, amended by the 29th World Medical Assembly, Tokyo, Japan, October 1975, the 35th World Medical Assembly, Venice, Italy, October 1983, and the 41st World Medical Assembly, Hong Kong, September 1989. The manuscript should contain a statement that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed and that subjects gave informed consent to the work. Studies involving experiments with animals must state that their care was in accordance with institution guidelines.

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent which should be documented in your paper. Patients have a right to privacy. Therefore identifying information, including patients' images, names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be included in videos, recordings, written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and you have obtained written informed consent for publication in print and electronic form from the patient (or parent, guardian or next of kin where applicable). If such consent is made subject to any conditions, Elsevier must be made aware of all such conditions. Written consents must be provided to Elsevier on request.Even where consent has been given, identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note.If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients included in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

Randomised controlled trials
All randomised controlled trials submitted for publication in Journal of Infection should include a completed Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) flow chart. Please refer to the CONSORT statement website at http://www.consort-statement.org for more information. Journal of Infection has adopted the proposal from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which require, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration in a public trials registry. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g. phase I trials) would be exempt. Further information can be found at http://www.icmje.org.

Digital Object Identifier
The digital object identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alphanumeric character string, which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (Example taken from a document in the journal): doi:10.1016/j.inf.2004.05.019 when you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Language Editing
International Science Editing and Asia Science Editing can provide English language and copyediting services to authors who want to publish in scientific, technical and medical journals, and need assistance before they submit their article of before it is accepted for publication. Authors can contact these services directly: International Science Editing ( http://www.internationalscienceediting.com) and Asia Science Editing ( http://www.asiascienceediting.com) or, for more information about language editing services, please visit http://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our terms and conditions ( http://www.elsevier.com/authors).

Title
Your title page, numbered as 1, should give the title in capital letters (not exceeding 100 letters), a running title (not exceeding 50 letters) and the authors' names (as they are to appear), affiliations and complete addresses, including postal (zip) codes. The author and address to whom correspondence should be sent must be clearly indicated. Please supply telephone, fax and e-mail numbers for the corresponding author. All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Abstracts
A structured abstract of your manuscript, a maximum of 200 words, summarizing the content, should be provided on a separate sheet following the title page. This must be divided into sections entitled Objectives; Methods; Results; Conclusions.

Length
The text should comprise the following sections: Summary, Key words, Introduction, Materials (or Patients) and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements and References. Tables, Figures and Legends to figures should be on separate sheets.

Reference Format
References must accord with the 'Vancouver' style (Br Med J 1982; 284: 1766-1770). When the number of authors is six or less, the names and initials of all should be given in the reference list; when seven or more, the first six names should be cited, followed by et al. Authors are responsible for checking the accuracy of all references and ensuring that all given in the text agree with those in the reference list.Example: 1. McConkey B, Crockson R A, Crockson A P, Wilkinson A R. The effect of some anti-inflammatory drugs on the acute phase proteins in rheumatoid arthritis. Q J Med 1973; 42: 785-791. References to book chapters should be set out: Example: 1. Weinstein L, Schwartz M N. Pathogenic properties of invading micro-organisms. In: Soderman W A Jr, Soderman W A, eds. Pathologic physiology: mechanisms of disease. W B Saunders, 1974: 457-472. References cited solely in tables and/or legends to figures should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first mention in the text of the table or illustration.Papers submitted with references or other features which fail to comply with these instructions will be returned, and not considered for publication until resubmitted in the required style.When citing an Elsevier journal, include the digital object identifier (DOI), if noted, from the article's title page. Please note the following examples.1. Munday PE. Pelvic inflammatory disease - an evidence-based approach to diagnosis. J Infect 2000; 40: 31-41, doi:10.1053/jinf.1999.06092. Colebunders R, Borchert M. Ebola haemorrhagic fever - a review. J Infect, doi: 10.1053/jinf. 1999.0603.

DNA sequences and GenBank accession numbers
Many journals cite "gene accession numbers" in their running text and footnotes. Gene accession numbers refer to genes or DNA sequences about which further information can be found in the databases at the National Center for Biotechnical Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine. Elsevier authors wishing to enable other scientists to use the accession numbers cited in their papers via links to these sources, should type this information in the following manner:For each and every accession number cited in an article, authors should type the accession number in bold, underlined text. Letters in the accession number should always be capitalised (see example below). This combitnation of letters and format will enable Elsevier's typesetters to recognise the relevant texts as accession numbers and add the required link to GenBank's sequences. Example: "GenBank accession nos. AI631510 , AI631511 , AI632198 , and BF223228 ), a B-cell tumor from a chronic lymphatic leukemia (Gen Bank accession no. BE675048 ), and a T-cell lymphoma (GenBank accession no. AA361117 )". Authors are encouraged to check accession numbers used very carefully. An error in a letter or number can result in a dead link. In the final version of the printed article, the accession number text will not appear bold or underlined. In the final version of the electronic copy, the accession number text will be linked to the appropriate source in the NCBI databases enabling readers to go directly to that source from the article.

Figures
Illustrations should be numbered in Arabic numerals (e.g. Fig. 3). Each figure should have a title that makes its meaning clear without reference to the text. For graphs and illustrations, high resolution files (jpeg or tiff) should be submitted. For each illustration a brief legend should be typewritten on a separate sheet. The identity of patients shown in photographs should either be concealed, or they should give written consent; a copy of consent should accompany the photograph. Simple masking of eyes in a photograph may not be sufficient. Colour prints will be considered only if essential; reproduction is at the author's expense. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see artwork instructions

Tables
Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals (e.g. Table 3). Each one should be on a separate sheet and have a title that makes its meaning clear without reference to the text included.

Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

Role of the funding source
All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgement at the end of the text. Authors should declare the role of study sponsors, if any, in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. If the study sponsors had no such involvement, the authors should so state.

Preparation of supplementary data
Elsevier now accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more.Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.elsevier.com/authors. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file.

Keywords
Authors should provide Keywords from their summary. They should include those published in Medical Subject Headings - Annotated Alphabetical List, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (new volume every year).

Units and Abbreviations
Microbes should be referred to by their scientific names according to the binominal system used in the latest edition of Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology (The Williams and Wilkins Co.). When first mentioned, the name should be in full and underlined - to denote italics. Thenceforward, the genus should be abbreviated to its initial letter, e.g. 'S. aureus' not 'Staph. aureus'. If abbreviation is likely to cause confusion or render the intended meaning(s) unclear the names of organisms should be given in full. Only those names included in the Approved Lists of Bacterial Names (Int J Syst Bacteriol 1980; 30: 225-420) and/or which have been validly published in the Int J Syst Bacteriol since January 1980 are acceptable. If there is a good reason to use a name that does not have standing in nomenclature, it should be enclosed in quotation marks and an appropriate statement concerning its use made in the text (e.g. Int J Syst Bacteriol 1980; 30: 547-556). Symbols for units of measurement must accord with the Systeme International (SI). However, blood pressure should be expressed in mmHg and haemoglobin as g/dl. Drugs should be referred to by their generic, and not proprietary, name(s); for guidance the latest edition of the British National Formulary should be consulted.

Case Reports
The Journal of Infection does not accept case reports.

Copyright Information
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a "Journal Publishing Agreement" (for more information on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/authors). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form. Authors are responsible for obtaining from the copyright holder permission to reproduce any figures for which copyright exists.

Proofs
One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding Author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post). Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70winIf you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

Electronic offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail or, alternatively, 25 free paper offprints. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.

Author Enquiries
For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit http://www.elsevier.com/authors. This also provides information to track accepted articles and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed, as well as detailed artwork guidelines, copyright information, frequently asked questions and more.Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication.

Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in the Journal are those of the authors, and not necessarily the Editorial Board or publishers. Ultimate responsibility in use and checking drug doses mentioned in the Journal, an in interpretation of published material lies with the physician concerned. Neither the Editorial Board nor the publishers can accept any liability whatsoever in respect of a claim for damages arising there from.