Ethics Statement

Preamble

Cameroonian Annals of Laboratory Medicine is the scientific journal of the Cameroonian Society of Clinical Biology. It publishes open access, peer-reviewed work in clinical biology and related disciplines. It is committed to applying internationally recognized best publication practices, including the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). It will apply for COPE membership as soon as the necessary conditions are met.

The journal has a dual ambition: to apply rules that conform to international standards, and to offer the scientific community, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, an open and accessible publishing platform so that research produced in our countries is shared and valued. The requirements are the same for all authors, and the journal provides them with tools and support to help them meet these requirements, as detailed in section 12.

1. Fundamental Principles

All those involved with the journal, whether authors, reviewers, editors or members of the editorial team, commit to respecting the following principles.

• Honesty. Everyone faithfully reports what has been done and observed.

• Rigour. The methods are adapted to the question asked and described in such a way that they can be reproduced.

• Transparency. Funding sources, conflicts of interest, tools used, and limitations of the work are declared.

• Respect for individuals. Participants, their samples and their data are protected.

• Responsibility. Everyone is responsible for their part of the work and corrects their mistakes.

• Fairness. Decisions are based solely on the scientific value of the work, without distinction of origin, institution, gender, language or status.

2. Commitments of the journal and its publisher

• Editorial independence. Publication decisions rest exclusively with the editorial board. Neither the SCBC office, nor any partner, nor any advertiser can influence them.

• Financial transparency. Submitting a manuscript is free. A publication fee of 50,000 FCFA is required after the article has been accepted, once the editorial decision has been made. This amount is published on the journal's website before any submission.

• Open access. Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, also known as CC BY 4.0. Anyone can read, download, and reuse the articles, provided they cite the authors. The authors retain their copyright.

• Longevity. Each article receives a DOI identifier, and the journal is registered in a long-term archiving system.

• Regularity. The magazine adheres to the publication schedule it announces.

• Advertising and partnerships. These are clearly separated from editorial content and have no impact on the acceptance of articles.

3. Responsibilities of the authors

3.1 Authorship Quality

An author is defined as any person who meets the four criteria defined by the ICMJE: having made a substantial contribution to the study design, data acquisition, or analysis; having written or critically reviewed the manuscript; having approved the final version; and agreeing to be responsible for the integrity of the entire work. Those who contributed without meeting these criteria are acknowledged in the acknowledgments, with their permission.

• Honorary authors, added because of their hierarchical position, and ghost authors, whose actual contribution is not mentioned, are not allowed.

• Any change to the list or order of authors after submission requires the written agreement of all authors and a justification addressed to the editor.

• In international collaborations, local researchers who have made substantial contributions to the study should be listed among the authors.

3.2 Identification of the authors

Each author submits their ORCID identifier. This free, permanent digital identifier allows researchers with similar names to be unambiguously distinguished and links each publication to its author. It can be obtained in minutes on the orcid.org website. Authors also provide their full name, affiliation, and a valid email address.

3.3 Originality, plagiarism and redundant publication

• The manuscript must be original and not be submitted simultaneously to another journal.

• Plagiarism consists of using someone else's ideas, data, text, or images without attribution. It is a criminal offense. Copying a text, even slightly reformulated, should be avoided.

• Self-plagiarism and redundant publication, which consists of republishing the same results, are prohibited. The artificial division of a study into several articles must be justified.

• An abstract presented at a conference, particularly at the Clinical Biology Days, a preprint, a dissertation or a thesis do not constitute a prior publication. However, they must be reported.

3.4 Data and image integrity

• Data fabrication, which consists of inventing them, and data falsification, which consists of altering data or results, constitute serious breaches.

• Laboratory images, such as smears, gels, electrophoresis, cultures, or cytograms , may only be adjusted uniformly across the entire image, such as brightness or contrast. No elements may be added, moved, deleted, or obscured. The original images are retained and provided upon request by the editorial staff.

• Raw data is kept for at least five years after publication.

3.5 Declarations

The authors declare their conflicts of interest, their sources of funding, including in-kind contributions, the ethical approval of their work and the possible use of artificial intelligence tools, according to the terms specified in the guidelines for authors.

3.6 Post-publication errors

The author who discovers a significant error in a published article shall inform the editorial staff without delay, so that a correction or, if necessary, a retraction may be published.

4. Ethics of research in clinical biology

4.1 Research involving human subjects

All research involving human subjects must comply with the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki. In Cameroon, it falls under Law No. 2022/008 of April 27, 2022, concerning medical research involving human subjects. It must have received a favorable opinion from a competent ethics committee, whether national, regional, or institutional. For research conducted in Cameroon, administrative authorization issued by the Ministry of Public Health is also required. Research conducted in other countries must comply with the regulations in force therein.

4.2 Biological samples and laboratory data

This section takes into account the specificities of clinical biology.

• The use of residual samples or data extracted from the laboratory's computer system also requires the opinion of an ethics committee. The committee may grant an exemption from consent, which must then be mentioned in the article.

• The data is anonymized or pseudonymized . No information that could identify a patient, such as their name, file number, full date of birth or a photograph that could identify them, appears in the manuscript, in accordance with Law No. 2024/017 of December 23, 2024 relating to the protection of personal data in Cameroon.

• The transfer of samples outside the country must be covered by a material transfer agreement and the required authorizations, which are mentioned in the manuscript.

4.3 Consent to publication

Every clinical case, case series, and image that could identify an individual requires the written consent of the patient or their legal representative. The author retains this consent and will provide it to the editorial staff upon request.

4.4 Vulnerable people

Research involving minors, persons lacking discernment, or other vulnerable individuals is subject to enhanced safeguards, which the authors describe in the section on methods.

4.5 Animal experimentation

The work carried out on the animal must have been authorized by the competent authority and is reported according to the ARRIVE 2.0 recommendations.

5. Artificial intelligence

• An artificial intelligence tool cannot be an author.

• Any use that goes beyond simple spelling correction must be declared, specifying the tool, its version, and the intended use. The authors remain fully responsible for the content.

• The creation or modification of images or data by artificial intelligence is prohibited, except when it constitutes the very object of the study and is described in the methods.

• Reviewers and editors do not deposit manuscripts, which are confidential, into publicly accessible artificial intelligence tools.

6. Responsibilities of the editors

• The editors base their decisions solely on the scientific merit of the work, its originality, its validity and its relevance to the field of the journal.

• They guarantee the confidentiality of manuscripts and the anonymity of the double-blind evaluation.

• They declare their own conflicts of interest and withdraw from the processing of any manuscript that concerns them.

• Manuscripts submitted by a member of the SCBC editorial board or bureau are assigned to an independent editor. The author concerned has no access to any information regarding their evaluation.

• Every decision is justified, and the announced deadlines are respected.

7. Responsibilities of reviewers

• Reviewers only accept manuscripts that fall within their competence and that they can evaluate within the requested timeframe.

• They declare any conflict of interest and recuse themselves when necessary.

• They treat the manuscript in a strictly confidential manner and do not use it for their own benefit.

• They formulate reasoned, courteous and constructive criticism, which the author can use to improve their work.

• They report to the editorial staff any suspicion of plagiarism, redundant publication or ethical breach.

The journal recognizes the work of its reviewers by providing them with an annual certificate and allowing their reviews to be listed on their ORCID profile. Like the authors, reviewers provide their ORCID identifier.

8. Evaluation Process

• Each manuscript is subject to a similarity check upon submission.

• Manuscripts selected after the initial examination are evaluated in a double-blind process by at least two reviewers.

• Review reports and decisions are stored in the journal's editorial platform.

• The similarity ratio is interpreted by an editor, and no percentage alone constitutes a decision. Passages quoted without citation in the introduction, results, and discussion are examined first.

9. Handling alleged breaches

The journal examines all reports, whether internal or external, including anonymous but substantiated ones, using COPE's flowcharts. It applies the principles of presumption of good faith, authors' right of reply, confidentiality, and proportionality, and distinguishes between good-faith error, negligence, and deliberate misconduct.

Depending on the seriousness of the facts, the journal may request a correction or explanation, reject the manuscript, inform the author's institution, publish a correction, an expression of concern or a retraction, or temporarily suspend the author's right to submit.

10. Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions

• Correction. This concerns a one-off error that does not call into question the conclusions of the article.

• Expression of concern. It is published when serious doubt exists and an examination is underway.

• Retraction. This occurs when the results are unreliable or in cases of plagiarism, redundant publication, or serious ethical breaches. The article remains online, clearly marked as retracted, with the reason for the retraction.

11. Appeals and complaints

Authors may appeal a decision by submitting a reasoned appeal to the editor-in-chief within one month. This appeal will be reviewed by a member of the committee who was not involved in the initial decision. Any complaints regarding the journal's operations should be sent to the designated address on the website, and an acknowledgement of receipt will be sent within seven days.

12. Support for authors

To ensure that demanding rules remain accessible to all authors, the journal commits to:

pre-filled declaration forms and writing grids for different types of studies, in French where they exist;

• In case of refusal, send a reasoned and constructive response indicating areas for improvement;

• encourage formative review, by inviting reviewers to distinguish between flaws that prevent publication and those that can be corrected;

• do not reject a scientifically sound piece of work for reasons of language, as the writing can help to improve the summary in English;

• welcome small studies and negative results, provided that the method is rigorous and the limitations are clearly discussed;

• organize, with the SCBC, scientific writing workshops, for example during the Clinical Biology Days, as well as a voluntary mentoring scheme.

13. Charter Revision

The charter is reviewed annually by the editorial board, as well as whenever international recommendations or the legal framework evolve. Each version is dated and archived on the journal's website.

References that inspired this charter

• Committee on Publication Ethics : Core Principles and flowcharts, publicationethics.org.

• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, version in vigor , icmje.org.

• World Medical Association: Declaration of Helsinki, 2024 revision.

• EQUATOR Network: writing guidelines, equator-network.org.

• ORCID: identifier of researchers, orcid.org.

• Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International license, creativecommons.org.

• Law No. 2022/008 of April 27, 2022 relating to medical research involving human subjects in Cameroon.

• Law No. 2024/017 of December 23, 2024 relating to the protection of personal data in Cameroon.

• ARRIVE 2.0: recommendations for animal experimentation, arriveguidelines.org.