The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo (Journal of the Institute of Tropical Medicine of São Paulo) was created in 1959 by Prof. Luiz Rey, the editor until 1964 when he was succeeded by Prof. Carlos da Silva Lacaz. Prof.Thales de Brito became the editor in September 1985 until 2015, when he was succeeded by Prof. Thelma Suely Okay.

Published bimonthly since 1959 without interruption, the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo has as target audience of health professionals working in major Brazilian and international research centers and Universities and Hospitals, being one of the oldest Brazilian publications in the Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine fields. Since 2016, the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo has adopted a seamless online mode of publishing.

Past issues from 1959 (v.1) on can be accessed at: https://fm.usp.br/imt/revista/past-issues

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo follows the Gold Open Access. Open Science Compliance Form: https://wp.scielo.org/wp-content/uploads/Open-Science-Compliance-Form_en.docx

Principles. Open Science, also known as Open Acess (OA) is a publishing model for scholarly communication that makes research information available unrestrictly and permanently to readers at no cost, through online acess. The main principles of AO science include transparency, collaboration, inclusivity, early and open sharing of research results through preprints, registered reports, data deposition in shared data repositories, open collaboration with other researchers helping them to improve the quality and speed of discoveries, therefore benefiting the world population. By implementing these principles, AO science acts as an innovative and tranformative approach to conducting science and sharing knowledge. 

Pros of OA: OA publications reduce permission requirements and eliminate price barriers for readers. OA allows access for all researchers, policy makers, journalists, teachers and the general public without a subscription. A number of studies have shown that OA publications receive more citations than subscription publications, therefore increasing the dissemination of research results favoring the author(s) carriers.

Cons of OA: A drawback of OA is the Article Processing Charges (APC), as they are sometimes prohibitive for small laboratories or researchers who have limited resources. However, the most significant threat to AO journals is the increasing prevalence of predatory journals, which are those that exploit the AO model for their own financial gain, offering a quick review process and to publish within a few days. They often claim to have high impact factors which are absolutely not true.

Preprints. A preprint is a version of an article that has not yet been submitted or completed the peer review process, meaning that the article has not been formallyapproved for publication. The preprint is deposited by the corresponding author on behalf of all of the authors in a preprint server like SciELO Preprints When using a preprint repository, authors will receive comments, suggestions and criticisms to their manuscript sent by scientists working the same field, which can be useful to improve the manuscript quality, being also beneficial for the authors as they will increase their chances of a formal publication and the number of citations of their work. These are the reasons for the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo to strongly encourage authors to send their preprints to SciELO Preprints before submitting the corresponding article for publication in our journal. Authors must disclose details of the preprint posting, including DOI and licensing terms, upon submission of the manuscript to the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo. It is worth remembering that the authors are the only responsible for the preprint content and as soon as the preprint is officially published, it is the corresponding author's responsibility to ensure that the record is updated with a reference to the publication in the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, including the updated DOI and a URL link to the published version of the article in our journal's website. While traditional journals typically subject articles to peer review prior to publication, a process that can take months or longer, open-peer review journals will typically release articles’ preprints soon after their submission, thus making their findings available to the public as soon as possible.

Use of SciELO Data. The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo strongly encourages the author(s) to deposit complete data sets used in the article, along with instruments, statistical analysis reports, captions and supplementary materials that should be made available in the open online repository SciELO Data, in case they cannot be inserted in the manuscript. This information should be clearly indicated in the body of the manuscript and the author(s) should acknowledge the full or partial availability of data, as well as the steps to be followed to have access to them.

Open Peer Review. Open peer review can be defined as any scholarly review mechanism providing disclosure of author and reviewers identities to one another at any point during the peer review or publication process. Then reviewer's identities may or may not be disclosed to the public along with the full content of revisions and answers given by the authors, always according to their preferences. Although the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo has adopted the double-blind peer review process from 2016 on, we are now encouraging the author(s) to join the open peer review process, and the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo will propose the open peer review process to all authors at the time of article submission.

Use of Artificial Intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) does not meet the requirements of the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo for the authorship of a scientific article, i.e., AI tools and language models cannot be listed as authors on any academic paper published in the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, as they are not human beings. However, AI can be used by authors in some instances, like assistance with the English usage and to improve readability of the text, eliminating wordiness and unnecessary or repeted information, providing that the manuscript was not entirely produced by AI. The main drawnback of texts produced by AI is that there is a non negligible chance that they will contain plagiarism and cited references may not exist or may be wrong or misplaced, as AI depends on previous information stored in a cloud. However, texts entirely translated into English by AI will not be accepted. Other situations in which the use of AI may be accepted are: literature search, production of original images or graphic elements, in the compilation and data analysis. It is mandatory that the author(s) make the use of AI explicit, bearing in mind that they are responsible for the accuracy, completeness and originality of their research articles, including any use of AI. Furthermore, the use of AI must not violate the plagiarism policy of the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo. Academic papers must be authored by the authors and should not present ideas, data, words or other material from third parties without proper citation and transparent referencing.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo follows the directives of the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE).

How to report demographic information of study participants.
Researchers are encouraged to report studies that include diverse and representative participants and to clear indicate all inclusion and exclusion criteria, and how the findings generalize to the study population that are the focus of the investigation or are involved in the research question. Aggregate, deidentified demographic information like age, sex, race and ethnicity, in addition to socioeconomic indicators should be reported in all original articles, brief communications and case reports along all prespecified outcomes. Demographic variables collected for a specific study should be reported in the Methods section. Demographic information assessed should be reported in the Results section, either in the article itself or in an online supplementary file. If any demographic characteristics that were collected are not reported, the reason should be clearly stated. Summary demographic information like baseline characteristics of study participants should be reported in the very beginning of the Results section.

How to report on age.
Study inclusion and exclusion criteria by age or age group should be defined in the Methods section. Stratification by age groups should be based on relevance to the target disease in the article, condition, or population (for instance <5 or >65 years). The ages for study participants should be expressed in mean values + SD, or in median values and IQR or minimum and maximum values in the Results section.

How to report on sex and gender.
The term sex should be used when reporting biological factors while gender should be used when reporting gender identity or psychosocial/cultural factors. The methods used to obtain information on sex, gender, or both (self-reported, investigator observed or classified, or laboratory test) should be clearly explained in the Methods section. 

The distribution of study participants or samples should be reported in the Results section in the case of studies on humans, tissues, cells, or animals. Authors should show all the participants, not only the predominant category of the sample. Studies addressing pregnant women should follow these recommendations, and if the gender identity of the participants was not obtained, the authors should use the terms pregnant participants, pregnant individuals, pregnant patients, according to what the authors deem most appropriate.

In original (research) articles, the authors should follow recommendations to include all representative populations in study design, data analyses, results, and interpretation of the findings. Report sex or gender of study participants, including how sex or gender was defined, assessed and interpreted. Whenever possible, all main outcomes should be reported by sex or gender (or both if appropriate, always prioritizing the understanding of the results). In reports which are not directly realted to the research, the authors should choose gender-neutral and sex-neutral terms to avoid bias, suit the material under discussion, in order not to misprime the readers.

How to report race and ethnicity.
Race and ethnicity of the study population should be reported in the Results section.

Categories should be listed in alphabetical order in text and tables, and the same order of presentation should be followed until the end of the article.

In the Methods section, the authors should include an explanation of who or how the participants race and ethnicity were identified, and the source of the classifications they have chosen to use (self-report, selection, investigator observed, database, electronic health record, a particular survey instrument).

If race and ethnicity categories were obtained for the study in question, the reasons explaining why these parameters were assessed should also be described in the Methods section. If data on race and ethnicity were collected due to a requirement of the funding agency, that should be cleared stated.

Specific racial and ethnic categories should be preferred by the authors over collective terms. Authors should report the specific categories used in their studies and recognize that these categories will differ based on: the geographic location of data collection, or the geographic location of the study participants, the databases or surveys selected for use, and the requirements of funders. A category included as a particular group of the study which was labeled as "other" should be clearly defined.

How to report on ethical approval of studies, informed consent of participants, informed consent of parents or legal guardians, and informed assente of school age children and adolescents. 
For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human beings or animals, formal review and approval, or formal review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee is required and should be described in the Methods section. Especially for Brazilian studies on humans, the Brazilian National Health Council resolution currently in force is the 466 of 2012. Regarding investigations carried out using animals, there is no resolution, but rather a law created by the CONCEA (Conselho Nacional de Controle de Experimentação Animal) and the CEUA (Comitê de Ética no Uso de Animais em Pesquisas Científicas), known as the law Arouca (Nº 11.794) which has been in force since from October 8, 2008. The preferred way to state the Ethics in a manuscript is: - “This research was approved by the Institutional Research Ethics Committee”. Then the authors should mention the date of approval and the process number.

For those researchers who do not have formal ethics review committees in their institutions, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be strictly followed. For investigations carried out in humans, state in the Methods section the manner in which informed consent was obtained from the study participants (oral or written), and whether participants received a copy of the signed document. Editors may request that authors provide documentation of the formal ethical approval and/or recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for the study follow-up.

In studies involving pediatric participants, the authors should clearly declare if the informed consent of parents or legal guardians was obtained, in addition to the informed assent of school age children and adolescents, if appropriate.

How to identify patients
A signed statement of informed consent to publish patient descriptions, photographs, video, and search forms should be obtained from all and each of the participants (from parents or legal guardians for minors) who can be identified and should be submitted with the manuscript and indicated in the Acknowledgment section of the manuscript. These participants should be offered the opportunity to see the manuscript before its submission.

Omitting data or making data less specific to deidentify patients is acceptable, but changing any data is any way is not acceptable. Only details which are essential for the understanding and interpretation of a specific case report or case series should be provided. The degree of specificity required will depend on the context of what has been reported, specific ages, race/ethnicity, and other sociodemographic details should be shown only if these parameters are clinically or scientifically relevantfor the understanding of the readers. Covering parts of photographs to remove identifiable personal features that are not essential to the message the article wants to convey to readers may be accepted as long as the photographs are not otherwise altered. The patient initials or other personal identifiers should not appear in an image. A signed patient permission form for publication of identifying material should be submitted for publication at the same time of the article.

Published in English, the journal is devoted to research on different aspects of tropical infectious diseases. The journal welcomes original work on all infectious diseases, provided that data and results are directly linked to human health.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo follows the directives of SciELO on digital preservation.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo is abstracted or indexed in Brazil and abroad by:

• Biological Abstracts
• DIADORIM
• DOAJ
• Index Copernicus
• JCR (InCites Journal Citation Reports)
• Latindex 
• PubMed
• PubMed Central 
• Scopus
• Sumários de Revistas Brasileiras (Sumários.org)
• Web of Science

• Title of the Journal: Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo
• Parallel title: Journal of the Institute of Tropical Medicine of São Paulo
• Título abreviado: Rev. Inst. Med. Trop. São Paulo  
• Short title: Rev. Inst. Troop Med. São Paulo
• Published by: University of São Paulo, Institute of Tropical Medicine of São Paulo
• Periodicity: Annual
• Publication mode: Continuous Publication
• Year of creation of the periodical: 1959

Websites

• https://www.fm.usp.br/imt/revista/revista-imt
• http://www.revistas.usp.br/rimtsp
• http://www.scielo.br/rimtsp

Social Media

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/revimtsp/

The journal accepts the submission of manuscripts published as preprints, as long as this is informed at the time of submission.

A preprint is a version of an article that has not yet been submitted or completed the peer review process, meaning that the article has not been formallyapproved for publication. The preprint is deposited by the corresponding author on behalf of all of the authors in a preprint server like SciELO Preprints When using a preprint repository, authors will receive comments, suggestions and criticisms to their manuscript sent by scientists working the same field, which can be useful to improve the manuscript quality, being also beneficial for the authors as they will increase their chances of a formal publication and the number of citations of their work. These are the reasons for the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo to strongly encourage authors to send their preprints to SciELO Preprints before submitting the corresponding article for publication in our journal. Authors must disclose details of the preprint posting, including DOI and licensing terms, upon submission of the manuscript to the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo. It is worth remembering that the authors are the only responsible for the preprint content and as soon as the preprint is officially published, it is the corresponding author's responsibility to ensure that the record is updated with a reference to the publication in the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, including the updated DOI and a URL link to the published version of the article in our journal's website. While traditional journals typically subject articles to peer review prior to publication, a process that can take months or longer, open-peer review journals will typically release articles’ preprints soon after their submission, thus making their findings available to the public as soon as possible.

Corresponding authors of articles submitted to the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo will be initially offered the opportunity to join the open peer review process, although the double-blind mode by two to four reviewers from the Editorial Board or indicated by the board as ad hoc reviewers is possible in case the open peer review is not accepted. The decision to accept a manuscript for publication rests with the associated editors and the editor-in-chief and is based mainly on the recommendations made by reviewers and area editors.

Article Evaluation Process

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Pauloeditorial policy defines the following criteria for evaluation process: adequacy to the scope of the journal and and to grammar and formal standards of the journal, scientific relevance, if the content is updated including references, textual coherence and logical reasoning, methodological and statistical consistency, ethical approval of the research, quality of tables and figures.

The evaluation process consists of the following steps:

1. Preliminary analysis by the editor-in-chief and the associate editors together with the administrative staff to verify: compliance with the general instructions defined by the editorial policies; if the manuscript is within the scope of the journal, the relevance and contribution of the research to the field, results from the screening of similarities in all submitted documents via the Turnitin platform.The journal pays special attention to ethical issues for carrying out research on animals or human beings. Approval from animal and human ethics committees are required in the submission process. Any article that does not meet the above cited criteria will be returned to the authors for corrections, or will be immediately rejected.

2. The manuscript was initially accepted and will be forward to reviewers. In accordance with open science practices, the journal will initially offer the authors and reviewers the option of opening up the peer review process, with or without identifying their names. Authorization to disclose their names can be given by the authors when at the time of submitting the article and by the reviewers when filling in the Open Science Compliance Form. Reviwers will evaluate the scientific merit of the research, incluing the accuracy of methods used, quality of results and how they were presented, and adequacy of the discussion with respect to the results and the corresponding literature. All manuscripts will be evaluated by at least two ad hoc reviewers from national and international research institutions, other than those of the author(s). In the event of publication of the evaluations on which the decision to publish the article was based, they may be edited by the journal's editorial board. Reviewers will recommend one of the options in the ScholarOne form: Accept, Revison or Reject.

3. Area editor recommendation based on the reviewers comments and suggestions, with subsequent appreciation of the editor-in-chief or the associate editor designed for the article. Then, the author(s) will receive one of the three decisions Accept, Revison or Reject and will be responsible for providing corrections, modifications, adequacies and anything else asked by the reviewers. After the modification(s), the artigo will undergo a second round of evaluation. The revised manuscript must be submitted online through ScholarOne Manuscripts by the corresponding author. The revised version of the article must be resubmitted accompanied by a cover letter explaining each change requested by each of the reviewer(s) following the same order of the questions. Suggestions that are not accepted must be scientifically justified. Changes must be clearly highlighted in the text in this revised version of the manuscript, called R1. The revised article and cover letter are initially assessed by the editor (in-chief or associate), who will forward them to the same reviewers who analyzed the initial version.
If the article receives discordant reviews (one accept and one reject), editors will decide whether to send it to a third reviewer. The editor is responsible for the final decision to publish or not the manuscript. In general, the review process is limited to two revised versions of the initial article (submitted version, R1 and R2).

4. After approval, the final proof in PDF of the article is sent to the corresponding author by e-mail for the authors final approval. The corresponding author will have 72 hours to correct the proof and return it to the editorial office, acknowledging its approval or asking for alterations. Only minor changes, such as correcting spelling and checking illustrations, are accepted. Extensive modifications imply a re-examination by the reviewers and a delay in the publication of the article. It is not expected to have alterations of authors’ names and affiliation, inclusion of additional authors and introduction of new sentences or paragraphs that were not in the original version of the manuscript. If the proof is not returned within 72 hours, the corresponding author will be contacted and in case of no answer, the editors will consider the sent proof as the final version, and no further changes will be allowed. Prior to publication, the author(s) will receive an e-mail with instructions on how to pay the APC (publication fee).

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo strongly to encourages the author(s) to deposit complete data sets used in the article, along with instruments, statistical analysis reports, captions and supplementary materials that should be made available in the open online repository SciELO Data, in case they cannot be inserted in the manuscript. This information should be clearly indicated in the body of the manuscript and the author(s) should acknowledge the full or partial availability of data, as well as the steps to be followed to have access to them.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo has established an Article Processing Charge (APC) that must be paid by all the manuscripts accepted for publication. These APCs are essential to ensure quality, favor the increment of the journal’s impact factor and the number of citations, to cover fees for the maintenance of the electronic manuscript submission and review system, in addition to the payment of complete reviews of the use of English and readability of the texts.

For submissions made from January 1th 2023 on, the APCs are US$500 (five hundred U$ dollars) for original articles and reviews and US$300 (three hundred U$ dollars) for case reports, brief communications and letters to the editor. Valid only for Brazilian citizens, the APCs are BRL 2,000.00 (two thousand Brazilian reais) for original articles and reviews, and BRL 1,500.00 (one thousand and five hundred Brazilian reais) for case reports, brief communications and letters to the editor. Once the manuscript is approved, the corresponding author will receive instructions to pay the APC. Thereafter, the corresponding author will receive the proof of payment (receipt) to be able to request reimbursement from funding agencies.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo has strict criteria regarding ethical issues related to published articles, and may take action in cases of violation of these criteria, going from the publication of errata to the withdrawal of articles.

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been previously published (except in the form of an abstract, published lecture, academic thesis or preprint). The article will first be evaluated for compliance with the Journal's scope and formal rules and analyzed by a plagiarism detection software (Turnitin) by the administrative staff of the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo. If significant plagiarism is detected, the editor-in-chief will decide on the next steps (immediate rejection, questioning the authors about the plagiarism found, request for modification of a certain paragraph, for example in the material and methods section.

Authors are expected to carefully consider the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and forward the final list of authors at the time of submission. Authorship changes are not expected or permitted during the evaluation phase or after acceptance of the submitted text. The already published article in which a misconduct is identified will be administratively retracted forwith and will remain indexed in the journal's database as a retracted manuscript.

Retraction documents will clearly state the reason for the retraction duly referenced, through communication from the author or editor or other authorized agent, and published in the same journal. The retraction can eventually be partial when the misconduct applies to a specific part of the article, without, however, compromising the scientific message of the published research.

The procedure for registering a retraction of an article published in the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo is initiated upon receipt of a formal communication by the editor-in-chief, via e-mail, who will then notify the Publisher SciELO. The communication must be accompanied by the retraction text stating the reasons that justify the article retraction.

As a published article cannot be unpublished, any mistakes or errors, irrespective of their nature or origin, which do not constitute misconduct, are corrected by means of an erratum. The journal will publish errata, corrections or retractions as soon as possible. Any additions or modifications to the submitted text should only be made before the manuscript is accepted and depending on the editor-in-chief official approval.
After the manuscript acceptance and publication, the editor-in-chief will only exceptionally consider additions and changes to the text. In these particular cases, the authors will be charged with a rectification fee which, in November 2024, is of R$200,00 (Brazilian reais), corresponding to U$ 50. While the editor-in-chief considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended.

Resolution of conflict of interests will be the responsibility of the editor-in-chief, associate editors and the journal’s administration. Eventually, area editors and other members of the editorial board will be urged to give their opinion, and more rarely, the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo will need the opinion of an external researcher who does not work in our institution.

Conflicts of Interest Policies

From Authors. Authors have to disclose any potential conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest can be of personal, academic, commercial, political, or financial nature. Conflicts of interest occur when authors, reviewers or editors have interests that may influence the preparation or evaluation of manuscripts. When submitting the manuscript, authors are responsible for recognizing and disclosing any financial or other potential conflicts that may have influenced the research. If a potential conflict of interest is present, the author(s) must disclose this fact in a signed document attached to the submission template form. Authors must identify in the manuscript all financial support obtained to carry out the research and other personal connections related to the study.

When there is no conflict of interest this can be stated by a direct sentence like:- "The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest related to this study". However, if there is a conflict of interest, the statement can follow the following template:

- "This study was funded by a grant from XXX Corporation, name of the city, name of the country. Dr. XXX is on the scientific advisory board of XXX Corporation (the same previosly cited). He also gives lectures sponsored by this company. Dr. YYY is a consultant or is a shareholder of XXX Corporation, city name, country name. However, Dr. YYY and Dr. ZZZ report no conflicts of interest related to this study."
- XXX Corporation, city name, country name, kindly provided us with dedicated reagents and equipment to perform WWW in this study. However, this Corporation did not participate in the design, sampling, analysis of the results and will not interfere in any way with the scientific dissemination of the results.

From Reviewers. Before starting to review the manuscript, reviewers should inform the editors on any conflicts of interest that might influence the manuscript evaluation, and must clearly declare that they are not qualified for the task. A number of types of conflicts of interest should be considered: working relationships with the author(s), for instance, participating at the moment or having participated in the same research project; having a presente or a past scientific collaboration with the research groups taht has submitted the article for publication; have a mentoring or hierarchical relationship with one or more of the authors; having a financial interest in the research subject developed in the manuscript; being related to one or more author(s).

From the editor-in-chief, associated editors and area editors: In the same way of reviewers, editors should by all means avoid making decisions on manuscripts that conflict with their own interests, such as those submitted by authors from their department, research collaborators or relatives.

Immediately after the article submission, the entire text will undergo a similarity screening carried out by the anti-plagiarism software iThenticate. This step is performed before the peer-review process begins.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo considers any type of plagiarism unacceptable. Similarity will be considered when the report generated by Turnitin shows more than 30% of identical sentences or paragraphs. When plagiarism is detected, the authors are informed on the Turnitin’s findings and they will have to justify them in a convincing and scientific way. It is worth mentioning that auto-plagisrism is also considered an ethical infraction, so that authors should not copy a Material and Methods section even if they have authored the previosly published article. In case of further doubts or questions, the editor-in-chief will contact the corresponding author and, if necessary, all the authors.  If duplication is proven, the article will be summarily rejected. The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo can eventually get in contact with the authors' institutions and/ or funding organizations involved in the development and supporting of the research, to inform them on the ethical infraction. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) does not meet the requirements of the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo for the authorship of a scientific article, i.e., AI tools and language models cannot be listed as authors on any academic paper published in the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, as they are not human beings. However, AI can be used by authors in some instances, like assistance with the English usage and to improve readability of the text, eliminating wordiness and unnecessary or repeted information, providing that the manuscript was not entirely produced by AI. The main drawnback of texts produced by AI is that there is a non negligible chance that they will contain plagiarism and cited references may not exist or may be wrong or misplaced, as AI depends on previous information stored in a cloud. However, texts entirely translated into English by AI will not be accepted. Other situations in which the use of AI may be accepted are: literature search, production of original images or graphic elements, in the compilation and data analysis. It is mandatory that the author(s) make the use of AI explicit, bearing in mind that they are responsible for the accuracy, completeness and originality of their research articles, including any use of AI. Furthermore, the use of AI must not violate the plagiarism policy of the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo. Academic papers must be authored by the authors and should not present ideas, data, words or other material from third parties without proper citation and transparent referencing.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo has joined initiatives to reach sex and gender equity in Research and Publishing. To this end, follows the Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER guidelines, available at: https://ease.org.uk/communities/gender-policy-committee/the-sager-guidelines/

How can scientific journals strengthen gender and sex equity in research and publishing in the medical field? This objective can be achieved by promoting research in the area, e.g. launching a call for articles authored by female researchers in the context of special editiosn entirely dedicated to women who should necessarily appear as the first or the last author. Another important step in the promotion of gender equity is the adoption of guidelines to improve the reporting of sex and gender in research across disciplines. To this end, a panel of 13 experts developed the SAGER (Sex and Gender Equity in Research) guidelines to guide authors in preparing manuscripts, and editors in assessing the inclusion of sex and gender into manuscripts as an integral part of the editorial process. A number of progressive changes will be made in the Scholar One submission system to increase the compliance to these guidelines and promote educational activities to reviewers and authors in order to facilitate the adherence to the SAGER guidelines.

The SAGER guidelines contains general principles on the use of words sex and gender with extreme caution, on the use of the term sex in animal studies and in cases where subjects can be differentiated by gender, the research should consider this information. Then, the SAGER guidelines can be summarized according to the article section: in the title and abstract, authors should specify gender/sex of research participants; in experiments dealing with cells or tissues in addition to molecular and biochemical studies, authors should specify the origino f cells, tissues and other biological samples; in the introduction section, authors should report if sex/gender differences may be expected; in the material and methods section, authors should describe how gender/sex was determined (self-report, physical examination, genetic testing) and in medical device testing, authors should explain if this device will be used by all genders and if it has been tested bearing gender/sex equity in mind; in th e results section, data should be routinely presented discriminated by sex and gender/sex-based analyses should be performed, if appropriate, and reported irrespective of positive or negative outcomes; finally, in the discussion section, implications of gender and sex on study results and analysis should be discussed. If a gender/ sex analysis was not carried out, a reasonable justification should be given, and authors should discuss the implications of the lack of such analysis in the interpretation of results.

All the manuscripts submitted for publication in Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo should include the approval of the research by the institutional Ethics Comittee along with the corresponding process number and date (month, day and year of approval). This approval is required for both, research involving human beings and experimental animals.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo is licensed under the Creative Commons license CC-BY 4.0.
Journal's responsibility

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo reserves the right to make normative, orthographic, and grammatical changes to the manuscripts to maintain language standards and adhere to the journal's guidelines fully explained in the Instructions to Authors, while respecting the authors' style.

Authors’ responsibility
- The author(s) must authorize the publication of the manuscript in the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, i.e., they grant the journal the right of the first publication, with the work published under the CC BY 4.0 license.
- The published manucript data and images can be shared provided that the authors are adequatedly acknowledged and the initial publication in the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo is cited. It is important that the original source of publication is cited in all instances.
- The opinions expressed by the authors are their sole responsibility, therefore preserving the integrity of articles in an open access environment.

Authors’ rights
- The journal allows the author to retain publishing rights without restrictions.
- Share: copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
- Adapt: modify, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
- Authors are allowed and encouraged to post their work (submitted version, accepted version or published version online through institutional repositories or preprints, as it may favor productive exchanges, establishment of new partnerships and the earlier and greater citation of the article published by the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo.  Authors are required to indicate/link the published article with DOI.

All content of the journal, except when properly identified, is licensed under a Creative Commons license CC-BY.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo is an open-access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo is published with the financial support of the following institutions:

Agência de Bibliotecas e Coleções Digitais (ABCD-USP)

Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (USP)

Programa de Apoio às Publicações Científicas do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

• Thelma Suely Okay – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID, e-mail: thelma.okay@usp.br          

• Camila Malta Romano – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID, cmromano@usp.br
• Lúcia Maria Almeida Braz – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID, lmabraz@usp.br
• Marcelo Genofre Vallada – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil, marcelo.vallada@hc.fm.usp.br

• Ana Armada – Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (NOVA), Lisboa, Portugal. ORCID

•  Gil Benard – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID

•  Andrés Jimenez Galisteo Júnior – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
•  Fabiana Martins de Paula – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
•  Heitor Franco de Andrade Júnior – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
•  Luciana Regina Meireles Jaguaribe Ekman – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
•  Maria Carmen Arroyo Sanchez – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
•  Ronaldo Cesar Borges Gryschek – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
•  Silvia Maria Fátima di Santi – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID

• Carla Torres Braconi dos Santos – Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
•  Lorenza Nogueira Campos Dezanet – Instituto René Rachou, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais/MG, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
•  Maria Cássia Jacintho Mendes Corrêa – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
•  Paulo Henrique Braz da Silva – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Tania Regina Tozetto Mendoza – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID

• Antonio Campos-Neto – Tufts University, Massachusetts, United States. ORCID
• Fátima Nogueira – Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA), Lisboa, Portugal. ORCID
• Gioconda San-Blas – Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientifícas (IVIC), Caracas, Venezuela
• Govinda Visvesvara – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, United States.
• Igor C. Almeida – University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), El Paso, United States. ORCID
• Ricardo Negroni –Hospital Francisco Javier Muñiz, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Robert H. Gilman – Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, United States. ORCID
• Sofia Cortes – Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA), Lisboa, Portugal. ORCID 

• Alan Lane de Melo – Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerias/MG, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Alberto José da Silva Duarte – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Anna Sara Shafferman Levin – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo/SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Antonio Alci Barone – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo/SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Antonio Carlos Nicodemo – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo/SP, Brazil. Lattes
• Carlos Faria Santos Amaral – Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais/MG, Brazil. Lattes
• Celso Francisco Hernandes Granato – Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Dalton Luiz Ferreira Alves – Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais/MG, Brazil. Lattes
• Ernesto Hofer – Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. Lattes
• Ester Cerdeira Sabino – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Euclides Ayres de Castilho – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Expedito José de Albuquerque Luna – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Fan Hui Wen – Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Flair José Carrilho – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Hiro Goto – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• João Carlos Pinto Dias – Centro de Pesquisas “René Rachou”, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais/MG, Brazil. Lattes
• João Renato Rebello Pinho – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• José Angelo Lauletta Lindoso – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• José Eduardo Levi – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID 
• Julia Maria Costa-Cruz – Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU), Uberlândia, Minas Gerais/MG, Brazil. Lattes
• Julio Litvoc – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes
• Luiz Tadeu Moares Figueiredo – Universidade São Paulo (USP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo/SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Maria Aparecida Shikanai-Yasuda – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID 
• Maria Irma Seixas Duarte – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID 
• Maria Lourdes Higuchi – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID 
• Mario Mariano – Universidade Federal de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes
• Mirian Nacagami Sotto – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID 
• Moisés Goldbaum – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes
• Moysés Sadigursky – Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFB), Salvador, Bahia/BA, Brazil. Lattes
• Myrthes Toledo Barros – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Paulo Cesar Cotrim – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brasil. Lattes, ORCID
• Paulo Marcos Zech Coelho – Centro de Pesquisas “René Rachou”, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais/MG, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Pedro Paulo Chieffi – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes
• Regina Célia Rodrigues de Moraes Abdulkader – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes
• Roberto Martinez – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo/SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Semíramis Guimarães Ferraz Viana – Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), Botucatu, São Paulo/SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Sílvia Figueiredo Costa – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Silvio Alencar Marques – Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (USP), Botucatu, São Paulo/SP, Brasil. Lattes
• Valdir Sabbaga Amato – Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Venâncio Avancini Ferreira Alves – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Lattes, ORCID
• Zilton de Araújo Andrade – Centro de Pesquisas “Gonçalo Moniz”, Salvador, Bahia/BA, Brazil. Lattes

• Carlos José Quinteiro – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo/SP, Brazil

•  Eliane Fernandes Araújo – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo/SP, Brazil

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo (Journal of the São Paulo Institute of Tropical Medicine) is a journal devoted to research on different aspects of tropical infectious diseases. The journal welcomes original work on all infectious diseases, provided that data and results are directly linked to human health.

The journal publishes, besides original articles, reviews, case reports, brief communications and letters to the editor.

The manuscripts must be submitted only written in English, so we strongly advise authors with English as a foreign language to have their manuscripts checked by a scientist with English as a first language or preferably by one of the suggested specialized companies:

• authorserv
• American Journal Experts
• Nature Publishing Group Editing Service

The receipt of a manuscript with the English usage considered inappropriate can lead to the return of the article to the authors even before the beginning of the review process.

A cover letter stating the following items should be included in the proper place on the submission website: 1) The manuscript and all parts of it have not been submitted elsewhere; 2) There are no financial or other relationships of any of the manuscript authors that might lead to any conflict of interest; 3) The submitted manuscript has been read by all authors carefully, and all authors agree that the manuscript represents their work. 4) Describe sources of funding that have supported the work. Please also describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in study design; collection, analysis and interpretation of data; writing of the paper; and decision to submit it for publication; 5) The corresponding author will be responsible for the communication with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the paper; 6) there is  no need of signatures in the cover letter. The manuscripts will be received only by online submission at: http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/rimtsp-scielo
On the same site, the authors can check the status of the submission at any time. The electronic file will be used for the editorial assessment and online refereeing, and the editorial decisions on the manuscript will be communicated to the corresponding author. Only the corresponding author will be contacted and always by e-mail, so be sure to designate an author who checks frequently the e-mail account.

Authors may suggest potential reviewers for their work provided that they give their e-mail addresses and affiliations of each scientist they have proposed. Please do not suggest scientists of the same institutions of the authors.             

Important recommendations:  

a) In order to improve the external validity of the manuscripts published in the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, as well as our internationalization process, we urge the authors to avoid the use of names of cities, states and provinces, especially in the titles of the articles, giving preference and only in cases of extreme need, to the use of regions of a particular country. In the body of the manuscript, authors must locate cities and regions using latitudes and longitudes.

b) Submissions with raw data or extensive supplementary material will have these files stored (during the reviewing process of the manuscript and perpetually, in case of publication), in the journal area at SciELO Data.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo staff will curate and analyze the data to be stored in the SciELO Data repository.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
For a manuscript to be considered an original article, it must be based primarily on data from research, in addition to the following conditions that need to be met:

•  It must be based on partial or total results of a scientific research that has not been published before. In the case of publications that contain partial results, they generally present one of the aspects belonging to a large-scale study. These results must be robust and comprehensive enough in the specific aspect being investigated, so that they cannot be presented as a brief communication. Furthermore, the results must have scientific merit, even in the absence of all the results of the full-scale study.
•  It should include a research question or hypothesis, the study purpose (objective, aim), and details of the research methods (full description of protocols). 
•  The research findings should be clearly reported.
•  The findings must be scientifically interpreted and possible implications (clinical, diagnostic, therapeutic etc.) for the ​​knowledge area should be discussed, comparing the results of this study with recent and related literature.

The original article should contain the following sections:

INTRODUCTION: this section provides background information and explains what the study is about and the purpose behind it.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: this section gives detailed explanation (protocols) of how the research was conducted and the type and concentration of reagents, materials, software and equipment used. The text must also contain the sample size calculation and how the results will be analyzed, with a comprehensive description of the statistical analysis. This is done so that other researchers can replicate the study and reproduce the findings. This section should also contain the research’s ethical approval by the institution. 

RESULTS: This section presents the research findings in detail along with all related data.

DISCUSSION: This section interprets the findings and discusses the impact that they may have on the field of study. These results will be compared with similar ones from relevant literature (these articles should be as recent as possible and on the same subject). Agreements and disagreements between studies should be pointed out and explained, if possible.  

CONCLUSION(S): this section should summarize briefly and precisely what were the main findings or breakthroughs of this study, if they are definitive or still need further investigations to be confirmed and what will probably be their major contributions or implications (clinical, diagnostic, therapeutic etc.) for scientific knowledge in the area.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE’S STRUCTURE: the text must contain a maximum of 6,000 words including abstract and references. The body of the manuscript should be preceded by a non-structured abstract (with no sub-headings), with a maximum of 500 words. References are limited to 40. Pages should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Tables and figures should be referred to in the text, numbered and contain a brief specific title. Figures such as drawings, maps, photographs, photomicrographs or electron micrographs should be planned to suit the size of a single or double page column. Figures in black and white or in color should be submitted in TIF format, with high resolution (1,200 DPI). The maximum number of attachments (the sum of figures and tables) is six. If any data are excessive long to be part of the article, they can be presented as supplementary material (flowcharts, diagrams, tables and figures). 

REVIEW ARTICLE
This type of article must be presented in the same format as the original articles. Review articles are intended for investigators who are experts in a particular field and who have made substantial contributions to that specific area of knowledge. The exception to these criteria is considered when there is a new microorganism or infectious disease, so that there are still no experts of the subject the scientific community. This type of manuscript should focus on the description of the state of art, highlighting the main breakthroughs on the subject. Eventually, researchers/scientists with notable expertise in a particular area may be invited by the editorial team to publish a review article. Narrative reviews and systematic reviews that may or may not constitute meta-analyses will be considered in this category.

REVIEW ARTICLE’S STRUCTURE: the structure is similar to the one of original articles, except that the number of references is limited to 60. Pages should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Tables and figures should be referred to in the text, numbered and contain a brief specific title. Figures such as drawings, maps, photographs, photomicrographs or electron micrographs should be planned to suit the size of a single or double page column. Figures in black and white or in color should be submitted in TIF format, with high resolution (1,200 DPI). The maximum number of attachments (the sum of figures and tables) is six.

CASE REPORT
OBJECTIVE: The reported case must be unique, rare, which cannot be explained by known diseases or syndromes. Alternatively, case reports can describe an unusual or more serious occurrence and, as such, remain one of the cornerstones of medical progress, notably for clinical practice, providing new insights into the field of human health. Every case report must have a clear learning point for the readers. The case should add value to the diagnosis (clinical or laboratory), management or treatment of infectious diseases. Unexpected adverse responses to therapies or vaccines are also welcome in this format. A case report should provide the details of the case in the following order: patient’s description that must be made in such a way that it is not possible to identify the patient; case history; physical examination results; results of pathological, laboratory, imaging and other investigations; treatment plan and its expected outcome; follow-up and evolution of the patient and of the infectious disease outcome; personal impact for the described patient.  Case reports must have been authorized by the Research and Ethics Committee of the institution and, if the report contains photos of the patient, they must have been authorized by the corresponding patient or, when it is not possible to contact the patient, authorizations from the Research Committee will be accepted. In other words, case reports should cover the following five sections: a short and informative summary, a succinct and direct introduction that will act as a brief literature review on the subject highlights that are covered in the case report, a comprehensive and complete description of the case (patient) or case series (patients) covering the ethical issues (authorizations by the Research and Ethics Committee of the institution and/or the patient’s authorizations for publishing his/her photos or images), a discussion that includes a rationale for the literature review that was carried out, ending with a brief summary of the case, what was learned from it and the conclusion remarks.

CASE REPORT’S STRUCTURE: The text of a case report should be short and succinct, not exceeding 2,000 words, references are limited to 20, and the attachments, which may be figures (photographs, maps, graphics etc.) or tables, must not exceed three (the sum of figures and tables).

BRIEF COMMUNICATION
OBJECTIVE: Brief communications should follow the same format of original articles, however, with a reduced number of words. They are short (hence the word “brief”) research articles reporting important research findings with groundbreaking results that deserve to be published as soon as possible. These findings are often part of a larger research, but the authors felt that the dissemination of preliminary results was worthwhile.

BRIEF COMMUNICATION’S STRUCTURE: In this category of manuscripts, the number of words is limited to 2,500, references are limited to 20, and the attachments, which may be figures (photographs, maps, graphics etc.) or tables, must not exceed three (the sum of figures and tables).

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
OBJECTIVE: A letter to the editor (LTE) is a brief, short communication addressed to the journal's editor. It usually contains an opinion contrary to an article recently published in the journal, but it can also contain the discussion of a specific topic unrelated to a published article, but which is of interest to the journal's readers and the topic is timely, that is, it is being subject of discussions in the scientific community. The LTE’s text should be brief, clear and to the point, beginning with what the letter is about, then why the issue is important. The LTE should provide scientific evidence for any praise or criticism, stating the LTE’s author clear opinion and what should be done. In any case, these LTEs must deal with topics that deserve a new scientific approach, and the additional and critical information presented must be supported by the literature and present relevance to the article or to the topic being addressed. If the LTE deals with a critique of an article recently published in RIMTSP, authors will be invited to send a response to answer to these questions. The editor-in-chief will decide on the publication of both, the LTE and the authors’ response, based on scientific merit, in addition to the importance of the discussion, always having the interest of the journal’s target audience as the most important parameter.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR’S STRUCTURE: In this category of manuscripts, the number of words is limited to 1,500, references are limited to 20, and the attachments, which may be figures (photographs, maps, graphics etc.) or tables, must not exceed three (the sum of figures and tables).

Should be brief, and should not include thanks to anonymous referees and editors, or effusive comments. Private or Governmental organizations that have provided financial support to the research should be mentioned, together with the grants or contribution numbers and period of validity.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo encourages authors to include a statement to specify the individual contributions of each co-author. Authors must include on the Title Page the individual contributions of each author, according to CRediT.

As the Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo reviewers work blindly, the Acknowledgments, the Funding and the Authors’ Contributions must not be included in the main text of the manuscript, and should be placed in the title page. Those statements will be included in the body of the text on the final version of the article.

The list of references, including only those actually mentioned in the text or tables, should be in Vancouver format, listed in order of the citation in the text, and numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals followed by a dot. The citations on the text must be in superscript format, only the numbers without parentheses.

Example: has been widely applied in clinical practice¹²
Example: according to the protocol used by Silva et al.²¹

References must be formatted as follows:

a) Articles from journals: Last names and initials (only the two first initials) of all authors (unless there are more than six, when only the first six names should be mentioned, followed by et al.), full title of the article, title of the journal (title abbreviations by NLM can be found on http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals), the year of publication, the volume number, the number of the first and last pages.

Example: Leveau CM, Uez O, Vacchino MN. Spatiotemporal trends of cases of pandemic influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 in Argentina, 2009-2012. Rev Inst Med Trop Sao Paulo. 2015;57:133-8.
Example: Yamamoto L, Santos EH, Pinto LS, Rocha MC, Kanunfre KA, Vallada MG, et al. SARS-CoV-2 infections with emphasis on pediatric patients: a narrative review. Rev Inst Med Trop Sao Paulo. 2020;62:e65.

b) Articles that have not yet been published, but already exist in the preprint format: Last names and initials (only the two first initials) of all authors (unless there are more than six, when only the first six names should be mentioned, followed by et al.), full title of the article, title of the journal or of the repository (title abbreviations by NLM can be found on http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals), the year of the preprint submission, followed by the words In Press.

Example: Savarin MT, March JH, Reynolds CJ. Hypertension in pregnancy: from pathophysiology to clinical practice. Rev Inst Med Trop Sao Paulo. 2021 In Press.
Example: Yin D, Fang L, Liu J, Zhong X, Guo T, Wan X, et al. Characteristics of cytokines in peripheral blood of hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus. medRxiv. 2021 In Press.

c) Books: Last names and initials of all authors, full title of the book, edition, place of publication, the publisher, and the year.

Example: Lewin JK. Genes and virus. 2^nded. Boston: Jones and Bartlett; 2008.

Citing books is not prohibited, but authors should give preference to citing articles published in indexed international scientific journals.

d) Chapter of books: Last names and initials of all authors of the chapter, full title of the chapter, last names and initials of all authors of the book, full title of the book, edition, place of publication, the publisher, the year, the pages of the chapter.

Example: Ferreira HO. Doença de Chagas. In: Farhat CF, Carvalho ES, Carvalho LH, Succi RC, editores. Infectologia pediátrica. São Paulo: Atheneu; 1998. p.531-7.

Citing chapters of books is not prohibited, but authors should give preference to citing articles published in indexed international scientific journals.

e) Websites: Name of the organization, the full title of the document cited, place of publication (if available), the publisher (if available), the year (if available), date of citing, URL of the precise document cited (not the organization URL).

Example: World Health Organization. Leprosy elimination. [cited 2021 Feb 26]. Available from: http://www.who.int/lep/situation/new_cases/en/
Example: Brasil. Ministério da Saúde. Secretaria de Vigilância em Saúde. Manual de recomendações para o controle da tuberculose no Brasil. 2ª ed. Brasília: Ministério da Saúde; 2019. [cited 2021 Feb 26]. Available from: https://bvsms.saude.gov.br/bvs/publicacoes/manual_recomendacoes_controle_tuberculose_brasil_2_ed.pdf

f) Thesis: The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo will not accept the citation of master of Science, PhD thesis, or similar work.

g) Softwares: The softwares used should not originate references, but the manufacturer and its location (city, State and country) should be cited in the text as is the case for equipments and laboratory reagents:
Example: The SPSS statistical software (version 16.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was used for all the calculations.

Articles must state in the Material and Methods section that: 1) informed consent was obtained from all human adult participants and from parents or legal guardians of minors together with the approved consent of the Ethical Commission; 2) a consent term was applied to study participants in the case of children over the age of seven and adolescents besides the consent obtained from parents or legal guardians of minors together with the approved consent of the Ethics Committee; 3) the maintenance of and procedures on experimental animals comply  with the guidelines on the use of laboratory animals prevailing in the country of origin.

Numbers that begin a sentence or those that are less than 10 should be spelled out using letters. Centuries and decades should be spelled out, e.g. the Eighties or Nineteenth Century. Laboratory parameters, time, temperature, length, area, mass, and volume should be expressed using digits.

The International Unit System must be used, with the exception of blood pressure values which are to be reported in mmHg. Please use the metric system for the expression of length, area, mass, and volume. Temperatures are to be given in degrees Celsius. Hours must be abbreviated as h, minutes as min, and seconds as s (all of them without dots after the abbreviated word).

The Materials and Methods section must include sufficient technical information to allow the experiments to be repeated. The sources of all media (i.e., name and location of manufacturer) or components of a new formulation must be provided.

When centrifugation conditions are mentioned, give enough information to enable another investigator to repeat the procedure: brand of the centrifuge (manufacturer), model of the equipment and model of the rotor, temperature, time at maximum speed, and centrifugation  force (X g instead of rotations per minute).
For devices and other products, the specific brand or trade name, the manufacturer and their location (city, State, country) should be provided the first time the device or product is mentioned in the text. Thereafter, the generic term (if appropriate) should be used.

Example: QIAamp® DNA Mini Kit (QIAGEN Inc., Hilden, Germany).

Authors are asked to use the Recommended International Nonproprietary Name (rINN) for medicinal substances, unless the specific trade name of a drug is actually relevant to the discussion. Generic drug names should appear in lowercase letters in the text. If a specific proprietary drug needs to be identified, the brand name may appear only once in the manuscript in parentheses following the generic name the first time the drug is mentioned in the text.
 

The informed consent is not needed if the patient cannot be identified from any material in a manuscript. In the absence of the informed consent, identifying details, such as the patient initials, specific dates, specific geographic exposures, or other identification features (including body features in figures), should be omitted, but this must not alter the scientific meaning.

Important information that is relevant to the scientific meaning should be stated so that the patient cannot be identified, e.g., by stating a season instead of a date, or a region instead of a city.

If a patient can be identified from the material in a manuscript, the informed consent is required. It can be obtained from the patient(s) or their parents/legal guardians in the case of minors.

For children of seven years old or more, beyond the informed consent of the parents/legal guardians, an informed assent of the child should be provided.

The Informed consent requires that the patient has had the opportunity to see and approve the manuscript prior to submission. The written informed consent must state either that the patient has seen and approved the complete manuscript, or that the patient declined  to do so.

The patient consent should be attached as an additional file at the time of the manuscript submission. A statement attesting the receipt and archiving of the written consent of the patient should be included in the published article.

The Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo supports the policy of Clinical Trials registration delivered by WHO and the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE) recognizing the importance, in open access, of these initiatives for the registration and international knowledge of the information on clinical studies. Therefore, from 2007 on, only papers of clinical research dealing with these issues having an identification number provided by one of the clinical assays validated by established criteria from WHO and ICMJE will be accepted. The addresses can be found in the ICMJE site. The trial registration number should be written at the end of the summary.

The manuscripts will be received only by on-line submission at: http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/rimtsp-scielo, where the authors can check the status of the submission at any time. The electronic file will be used for the editorial assessment and the online refereeing. The editorial decisions on the manuscript will be communicated to the corresponding author by e-mail.

Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo
Universidade de São Paulo - Faculdade de Medicina - Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo
Av. Dr. Enéas Carvalho de Aguiar, 470 - CEP 05403-000 - São Paulo - SP - Brasil
E-mail: revimtsp@usp.br
Tel: +55 11 3061-7005