The Official journal of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology and The European Society for Clinical Virology
Former title: Clinical and Diagnostic Virology

Submission of an article to the Journal of Clinical Virology implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an Abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Articles may only be submitted through the online submission system available at http://ees.elsevier.com/jcv. Authors submitting paper articles will be contacted and requested to submit online.

Please ensure that you have completed the following:

- Indicated the type of article submitted.
- Manuscript and abstract (according to the Guide for Authors) are complete and uploaded.
- The structure of the manuscript and abstract is correct for each article type, see below.
- All figures and tables have been uploaded and appear correctly in the pdf.
- All text pages, keywords, artwork, tables and figure captions have been included.
- Manuscript is spell-checked and within the word limit for the type of article.
- If manuscript is over the word limit, approval from the Editor to exceed the word limit is obtained prior to submission. You will need to upload the Editor's approval when submitting the paper.
- Manuscripts should be submitted in double line spacing and the lines and pages should be numbered.
- References are in the correct format for the journal. Citations in the text are numbered superscripts.
- References mentioned in the reference list are cited in the text and vice versa.
- Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web).
- Colour figures are clearly marked as being intended for colour or black-and-white reproduction.
Articles of the following types are accepted by the Editors.

Full-length Articles
Full-length articles should describe original research and/or clinical studies, and should be no more than 2,000 words excluding references and abstract. A structured Abstract of your study, of no more than 250 words, is required, and should include the following headings in bold: Background, Objectives, Study Design, Results, and Conclusions. The main text should be structured as follows: Background, Objectives, Study Design, Results, Discussion.
Short Communications
These articles should include a structured Abstract (see below), and be no longer than 1,250 words excluding references and abstract.A structured Abstract of your study, of no more than 250 words, is required, and should include the following headings in bold: Background, Objectives, Study Design, Results, and Conclusions. The main text should be structured as follows: Background, Objectives, Study Design, Results, Discussion.
Case Reports
These should be short articles of a clinical nature which illustrate or illuminate an underlying principle of a disease state, its diagnosis, or its therapy and should not exceed 1,500 words. All Case Reports should adhere to the following structure: Why this case is important, Case description, other similar and contrasting cases in the literature, Discussion.
My favourite assay The idea behind this is that it offers an opportunity for researchers to present an assay that they have developed that they feel would be useful for others. The articles should be a maximum of 2 printed pages long and are not peer reviewed. If others try the assay and it does not work, they are encouraged to submit a letter to the editor with their data. The Sections are: Reasons for developing the assay, methods used in designing the assay, Protocol and Validation date (dilution series, clinical samples, QCMD panels etc). Maximum 2 printed pages.
VIROQAS
Part I: Case presentation. Provide questions for readers at the end (bold).
Part II: Evidence-based opinion. Each sub-section should start with the question from Part I (in bold), and answer the question
Provide a page break between Part I and Part II.
Size limit:
Part I: maximum one printed page
Part II: maximum two printed pages
Word Limit: 1250
Letters to the Editor
Correspondence should be no more than 500 words. Comments on previously published articles or any other items of interest to clinical virologists may be considered.
Guidelines and Clinical Algorithms
These should be documents that have been locally or nationally approved and contain generalizable principles that may benefit others in their clinical practice or in writing their own algorithms or guidelines.
Commentaries and Points of View
Please contact one of the Editors-in-Chief to check on the suitability of your topic. These types of article should be no more than 750 words.
Review Articles
Prospective authors of review articles should contact one of the Editors-in-Chief prior to submission. These reviews should give a succinct overview of a particular topic. Review articles should be no more than 3,000 words.
Meeting Reports, News, and Announcements
Meeting reports should provide a summary of a relevant Symposium, Workshop, etc. and should not exceed 1,500 words. News or Announcements should be brief paragraphs about new developments within a relevant field and should not exceed 1,000 words.

Manuscripts that cover subjects well studied in the literature that do not make an obviously fresh point or those which primarily confirm previous findings but in a different geographical area, are likely to be rejected unless there are novel clinical implications or they cover a hot new topic (eg a new virus). In cases of doubt, please contact either of the Editors in Chief.


If you are unsure as to the suitability of your article for publication in the JCV, please send either one of the Editors-in-Chief a copy of your Abstract by E-mail. They will then advise you on whether or not your work would be appropriate for publication.


To avoid unnecessary delays authors should adhere strictly to the following instructions.

Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. Manuscripts should be submitted in double line spacing and the lines and pages should be numbered. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the program's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Do not embed 'graphically designed' equations or tables, but prepare these using your word processing program's facility.

Ensure that the letter 'l' and digit '1' (also letter 'O' and digit '0') have been used properly, and structure your article (tabs, indent, etc.) consistently. Characters not available in your word processing program (Greek letters, mathematical symbols, etc.) should not be left open but indicated by a unique code (e.g., gralpha, @, #, etc., for the Greek letter alpha). Such codes should be used consistently through the entire text. Please make a list of such codes and provide a key.

To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell check' function of your word processing program.

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these).

Please use decimal points rather than commas for numbers.

The metric system is to be used throughout.

Language Editing Before submitting a paper, we recommend authors refer to our Editing Checklist provides a guide in helping identify common spelling and grammar mistakes. We suggest authors consider using a language editing service to improve the English language usage and quality of a paper. A number of language editing companies provide their services to our authors at competitive rates

Title page
The title page should include: the name(s) of the author(s), their full postal addresses, a footnote indicating (by asterisk) to whom correspondence should be sent, telephone and fax numbers, E-mail address, and a footnote providing any abbreviations used in the paper. Please indicate the number of words in the Abstract and in the text (not to include References) at the bottom of the page.

Abstract
A structured Abstract of your study, of no more than 250 words, is required, for short communications and full length articles, and should include the following headings in bold: Background, Objectives, Study Design, Results, and Conclusions. Abstracts form the basis of electronic searches may influence a researcher's decision to read and cite your work, so it is very important that the abstract summarise your article fully and be able to stand alone to explain the work.

Key words
Key words (3-6) should be provided at the foot of the abstract.

Short communications and full-length articles should have the following sections in the manuscript:

Background
Objectives
Study Design
Results
Discussion
Acknowledgments and COI

Conflict of Interest
The Editors of the Journal of Clinical Virology require that submissions contain a Conflict of Interest Declaration. Upon submission you will be required to complete and upload this form (word version or pdf version) to declare funding, conflict of interest and to indicate whether ethical approval was sought. This information must also be inserted into your manuscript under the acknowledgements section with the headings below. If you have no declaration to make please insert the following statements into your manuscript: Funding: None Competing interests: None declared Ethical approval: Not required

References

Please note the change in reference style for the journal from 1 April 2008. All papers submitted after 31 June 2008 in the 'old' reference style will need to be revised to the new format by authors

Please adhere strictly to the reference style of the journal. All references mentioned in the Reference section are cited in the text, and vice versa. The reference style is 'Embellished Vancouver' system with numbers in the text.

Text: Indicate references by superscript numbers in the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.

List: Number the references in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

References to journals should contain names and initials of the author(s), article title, abbreviation of the name of the journal according to the List of Serial Title Word Abbreviations (International Serials Data System, 20, rue Bachaumont, 75002 Paris, France, ISBN 2-904938-02-8), year, volume number and page numbers.

References to books should also include the title (of series and volume), initials and names of the editor(s), publisher, place of publication, year.

Examples:
1. De Clercq E. Antiviral drugs: Current state of the art. J Clin Virol 2001;22,73-89.

2. Tartaglia J, Paoletti E. Live recombinant viral vaccines. In: van Regenmortel MHV and Neurath AR, editors. Immunochemistry of Viruses II. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 1990, p. 125-51.

3. Kaplan MH. Human herpesvirus-6 and HIV-1 infection. In: Ablashi DV, Krueger GRF, Salahuddin SZ, editors. Perspectives in Medical Virology, Vol. 4, Human herpesvirus-6. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 1992, p. 255-61.

Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 125-51, and that for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by 'et al.' For further details you are referred to "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927-34), see also http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/terms_cond.html

Tables, Figures, and Legends
When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared as done for conventional manuscripts. Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript. See also the section on Preparation of electronic illustrations. Colour figures must be clearly marked as being intended for colour reproduction or to be reproduced in black-and-white. Reproduction of colour figures will incur a charge to the author; however if both colour and black-and-white figures (of the same figure) are supplied, it is possible to have the black-and-white image appear in print, and the colour image to appear on the online version at no extra cost. Please indicate if you would prefer this at the time of submission.

Ethics
Work on human beings that is submitted to the Journal 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 (see declarations section above).

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.

Animal welfare
Authors using experimental animals must state that their care is in accordance with institutional guidelines. For animals subjected to invasive procedures, the anaesthetic, analgesic and tranquilizing agents used, as well as the amounts and frequency of administration, must be stated.

Proofs and Reprints
One set of proofs will be supplied for the author to check for type-setting accuracy. Only printer's errors may be corrected. No changes in, or additions to, the edited manuscript will be accepted. 25 reprints are provided free of charge. Furthermore, each author receives an order form for additional reprints, which he/she is asked to complete and return to Elsevier Ireland Ltd., Elsevier House, Brookvale Plaza, East Park, Shannon, Co. Clare, Ireland, together with those proofs. Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure that your first sending is complete. There will be no page charge.

Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright see www.elsevier.com/authors). This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A letter will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript. A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided.

If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has pre-printed forms for use by authors in these cases: contact ES Global Rights Department, P.O. Box 800, Oxford, OX5 1DX, UK; phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, E-mail: permissions@elsevier.com.

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

For any further information please contact the Author Support Department at authorsupport@elsevier.com.