African Health Sciences is an internationally-refereed, free access, journal publishing original articles on research, clinical practice, public health, policy, planning, implementation and evaluation, in the health and related sciences relevant to Africa and the tropics. It is published 4 times a year in March, June, September and December. African Health Sciences is currently indexed for MEDLINE, and articles are indexed in PubMed from v1 n1, 2001.

African Health Sciences is a fully open access journal and therefore is free to read, and it is also free for authors to publish (there is no Article Publication Charge (APC)). There are no submission fees or author fees of any kind. As the journal is online only, there are no page charges.

SUBMITTING A MANUSCRIPT
The manuscript should be submitted online on Manuscript Central on the following website:
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mums-ahs
Editorial enquiries should be sent by email to:
The Editor,
African Health Sciences,
Makerere University School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences
P. O. Box 7072, Kampala, Uganda.
Fax: +256-41-530022,
Email: kabaleimc@gmail.com
Tel +256-41-530020/1; +256 772 494120.

Authors may also contact the Editorial Office for status requests regarding their submissions: Benidictor Muhwezi (benidictmak@gmail.com).
We accept a manuscript on the understanding that it is reporting unpublished work and that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. We generally accept manuscripts in the following categories: reports of original research, case reports, special articles, letters to the editor and reviews.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS
African Health Sciences fully endorses the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ICMJE, details of which can be accessed on: http://www.icmje.org
LENGTH OF MANUSCRIPTS
Full-length articles should not exceed 3000 words and have a maximum of six tables (or figures). Short reports should be less than 1500 words with a maximum of two tables (or figures). Letters to the Editor and Book reviews should be less than 1500 words and do not need an abstract.

FORMATTING
Manuscripts should be written in English and typed to fit on single-sided A4size pages, double-spaced with margins of at least 25mm. Research articles should include the following, each beginning on a fresh page: title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references, acknowledgements, tables and figures.

TITLE PAGE
This should contain an informative title, the first name, initial and last name of each author. The page should also include the name of institution(s) and departments to which the work should be attributed, and the name, address, email, fax, and telephone numbers (s) of the author responsible for correspondence about the manuscript. We also require the email addresses of ALL authors. On acceptance, the list of authors will not change.
ABSTRACT
The abstract must not exceed 250 words and must be structured as follows: Background, Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.

This should be on a separate page and not be more than ten printed lines (about 500 bytes).

FIGURES AND TABLES AND SCIENTIFIC MEASUREMENTS.

1. Figures and tables should be of reproducible quality, include comprehensive captions and not duplicate material presented in the text. All illustrations (tables and figures) must be cited consecutively in the text. Avoid internal vertical or horizontal lines in tables.
2. Any figures should be professionally designed and submitted as original copies. • All scientific measurements except blood pressure (mm Hg) should be expressed in SI units. REFERENCES: (Vancouver style).
3. Any figures should be professionally designed and submitted as original copies. • All scientific measurements except blood pressure (mm Hg) should be expressed in SI units. REFERENCES: (Vancouver style).
4. The references must be in the following form: author (s), title of journal article, full name or Index Medicus or Medline or PUBMED abbreviation of journal, year of publication, volume number, and page numbers in full. When there are six or fewer authors, list all of them. If there are seven or more, then list the first six followed by et al. Examples of references:

Book reference:
Campbell JM, Machin D. Medical Statistics: a common sense approach. 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993 References to personal communication, unpublished material or manuscripts in preparation or submitted, but not yet accepted, are discouraged.
Permission to reproduce borrowed material: Written permission to reproduce borrowed material (Illustrations, tables and figures) must be obtained from the original publishers and authors, and submitted with the manuscript. Borrowed material should be acknowledged in captions Conflict of interest disclosure Authors: African Health Sciences requires all authors to disclose conflict of interest.

According to the ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org/ethical_4conflicts.html), this includes “all financial and personal relationships that might bias their work”. The authors have to say “whether potential conflict does or does not exist.” African Health Sciences expects authors to declare presence or absence conflict of interest in the manuscript. This must be written on a separate page, giving detail where applicable, of the conflict of interest if it exists.
CHECKLIST FOR AUTHORS
Before submitting your manuscript please make sure you have the following:
1. Covering (submission) letter
2. Corresponding author’s name, complete address, institution, title, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail.
3. Complete address, degrees, institution, title, telephone number, and e-mail for each author
4. Manuscript in Microsoft Word, or RTF
5. Conflict of interest disclosure
6. Proposed list of potential reviewers

7. Submit your manuscripts on : http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mums-ahs Copyright 2017 – African Health Sciences
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission’s compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
2. The submission file is in Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
3. Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
4. The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end
5. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
6. If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.
7. Authors are given up to three months to complete revisions. Requests for extensions should be sent to Benidictor Muhwezi (benidictmak@gmail.com), and will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Peer Review
This Journal operates a double blind peer review policy. Submitted manuscripts will first be assessed by the Editor-in-Chief to ensure they are appropriate for the journal. Papers considered suitable are then usually sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The peer review reports will be shared with the author. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the acceptance or rejection of articles, along with the Associate Editors. The Editor’s decision is final.

In 2018 the average decision time, including papers sent through the peer review process, was 132 days.

Conflict of interest in peer review
African Health Sciences would like peer-reviewers to disclose all potential situations which might be viewed as conflicts of interest. To avoid any doubt, all reviewers have to state if conflict exists or not. We expect reviewers not to use the work they are reviewing for other purposes.

Deposit policy
A copy of an author’s final, published article may be shared according to the end-user license (CC-by 4.0), and a DOI link to the formal publication on the African Health Sciences library: https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs