INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

Current Allergy and Clinical Immunology Author’s Guidelines

Current Allergy & Clinical Immunology (Journal of the Allergy Society of South Africa) publishes articles concerned with the understanding and practice of allergic diseases or clinical immunology. Material submitted for publication to Current Allergy & Clinical Immunology is accepted on condition that it has not been published elsewhere. The journal maintains the copyright of the material published. All named authors must give consent to publish. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the sponsors or publishers.

Original research, review articles, case reports, brief research reports or photographs may be submitted. All articles will be subjected to peer review.

Manuscript preparation:

1. Articles should be submitted by email to robyn@jesser-point.co.za. Authors should state their full name, qualifications, institutional affiliation and provide a corresponding address and email on the title page. ORCID are optional. The type of article should also be specified:
   • Research/Review and Ethics (Law) articles should be a maximum of 3500 words with no more than 3 figures and 3 tables. An abstract of no more than 200 words must be included. For research articles the following headings should be used: Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusion(s). Five keywords should be provided for all articles.
   • CPD questions (not required for research articles and case reports):
     • Please compose 4 multiple-choice (single-best answer) questions related to your article for our CPD questionnaire and submit these as a separate MSWord document with your article.
     • The questions should be straightforward and educational, not obscure or trick questions. They are simply to test whether the reader has read and understood the article.
     • Each question must contain a minimum of 4 options with only one correct answer.
     • Please provide the answers to the questions.
     • No true and false questions.
     • No commercial product promotion and satire should be included.
   • Case reports should not exceed 2000 words, with a maximum of 3 figures, 3 tables and 10 references and must have a summary of not more than 50 words. Five keywords should be provided. Prior permission must be obtained from the patient. In the case of minors (children younger than 18 years of age), permission from a parent or legal guardian, should be obtained. Case reports should be submitted, together with a Patient Consent Form to Dr Pieter de Waal at doctorforkids@outlook.com. A photograph (instead of a scanned email document) of the completed consent form may also be sent to Dr de Waal at: 084 8903 234, with the original copy kept in the patient’s clinical records. Telephonic consent is also acceptable – this should be clearly indicated on the Patient Consent Form. We welcome illustrative images pertaining to the case, but patient consent should be obtained prior to submission (see Patient Consent Form). These usually add clinical and illustrative value to reports (see (6) below). The reviewers of Case Reports may edit images, to protect a patient’s identity or to prevent images of sensitive nature from being published.
2. The following declarations must be stated at the end of the manuscript before the references:
   • Declaration of conflict of interest: Authors should disclose any relationship within the last 2 years with pharmaceutical companies in the following categories, if pertinent to the article: research grants, educational support (sponsorship at conferences), advisory boards, consultant, or shares in companies. If there is no conflict of interest, please state “The author declares no conflict of interest.”
   • Funding
   • Plagiarism: The authors acknowledge that the Editorial Board reserves the right to use plagiarism detection software on any submitted material.
3. Ethics approval must be included with all original research articles.
4. All abbreviations must be spelt out when first used in the text and thereafter used
5. Tables must be numbered with Roman numerals, thus: I, II, III, and illustrations/figures with Arabic numerals, thus 1, 2, 3, etc.
6. Images must be submitted separately from the manuscript file as high-resolution jpg or png files, and clearly labelled. Images should NOT be submitted in Powerpoint format or be included in the MSWord. The source of the images must be provided.
7. Manuscripts submitted in the incorrect format will be returned for revision before consideration for publication.

References:

1. References should be inserted in the text, as superscript numbers, and should be listed at the end of the article in numerical order.
2. References must be set out in the Vancouver Referencing style and only approved abbreviations of journal titles should be used. Names and initials of all authors must be given unless there are more than six, in which case the first three names must be given followed by ‘et al’. First and last page numbers must be given. Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) must be provided where possible
   Example: Choi PY, Grace RF, Ahlen AT, et al. The SSC platelet immunology register of VITT and VIITP: Toward standardization of laboratory and clinical parameters. J Thromb Haemost. 2021;19(8):2094–2095. https://doi.org/10.1111/jth.15402.

3. References for books must include the author’s surname and initials. Title of chapter. In: Editor’s surname initials, editor. Title of the book. #ed. [if not 1st] Place of publication: Publisher’s name; Year of publication. #. [page numbers of chapter]. Example: Gallati S. Genetics, pathophysiology and epidemiology of CF. In: Eber E, Medulla F, editors. Paediatric Respiratory Handbook. 1st ed. Sheffield: European Respiratory Society; 2013. p.390–396.
4. Website references should include the date last accessed.
   Example: Allergic rhinitis guideline. www.allergysa.org (accessed 12 August 2011).

5. ‘Unpublished observations’ and ‘personal communications’ may be cited in the text, but not in the reference list. Articles accepted but not yet published can be included as references followed by ‘(in press).