Peer-Review and Ethics

Peer-review

Editorial policies of the journal are conducted according to the rules advised by Council of Science Editors and reflected in the “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” (http://www.icmje.org/).

Submitted manuscripts are subjected for double-blind  peer-review. The scientific board guiding the selection of the papers to be published in the Journal consists of elected experts of the Journal and if necessary, selected from national and international experts in the relevant field of research. 
All manuscripts are reviewed by the editor, section associate editors and at least three internal and external expert referees. All research articles undergo review by statistical editor as well.

The authors of the accepted manuscripts should be in consent that the editor and associate editors could make corrections without changing the main text of the paper.
Manuscript format should be in accordance with “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” (http://www.icmje.org/).

Ethics

For the experimental, clinical and drug human studies, approval  by ethical committee and statement on the adherence of the study protocol to the international agreements  (Helsinki Declaration revised in 2013 (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/) are required. In experimental animal studies, the authors should indicate that the procedures followed were in accordance with animal rights ("Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" www.nap.edu.catalog/5140.html) and they should obtain animal ethics committee approval. The Ethics Committee approval document should be submitted to the Viral Hepatitis Journal together with the manuscript.

The approval of the ethics committee, statement on the adherence to international guidelines mentioned above and that the patients` informed consent is obtained should be indicated in the `Material and Method` section and is required for case reports whenever data/media used could reveal identity of the patient. The declaration of the conflict of interest between authors, institutions, acknowledgement of  any financial or material support, aid is mandatory for authors submitting manuscript and the statement should appear at the end of manuscript. Reviewers are required to report if any potential conflict of interest exists between reviewer and authors, institutions.

Plagiarism: To re-publish whole or in part the contents of another author's publication as one's own without providing a reference. Fabrication: To publish data and findings/results that do not exist. Duplication: Use of data from another publication, which includes re-publishing a manuscript in different languages. Salamisation: To create more than one publication by dividing the results of a study preternaturally. We disapproval upon such unethical practices as plagiarism, fabrication, duplication, and salamisation, as well as efforts to influence the review process with such practices as gifting authorship, inappropriate acknowledgements, and references. Additionally, authors must respect participant right to privacy. On the other hand, short abstracts published in congress books that do not exceed 400 words and present data of preliminary research, and those that are presented in an electronic environment are not accepted pre-published work. Authors in such situation must declare this status on the first page of the manuscript and in the cover letter. (The COPE flowchart is available at: http://publicationethics.org) All responsibility of the articles published belongs to the authors.

Submitted manuscripts are also subjected for the evaluation of plagiarism, duplicate publication by automatic software.  Authors are obliged to acknowledge if they published study results in full or in part in form of abstracts.

We use "Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate" to screen all submissions for plagiarism before publication.