Feature Papers in Pandemics

Dear Colleagues,

Pandemics are large-scale outbreaks of an infectious disease that greatly increase morbidity and mortality at the global level, causing significant economic, social, political, and health-care disruption. Pandemic events are usually due to the emergence of a new microbial agent, mostly a virus, through species passage from an animal reservoir, followed by person-to-person spread in completely susceptible populations. The likelihood of outbreaks due to emerging pathogens with pandemic potential has increased over the past decades, because of increased global travel, urbanization, changes in land use, and greater exploitation of natural environment, posing a major challenge in terms of public health.

The journal Pandemics is launching a call for its first Special Issue, that will cover all topics related to the emergence and global spread of highly virulent and/or highly contagious microorganisms, considering both original and review articles. Significant attention will be given to (i) research on the animal/human interface; (ii) surveillance activities, including outbreak investigation, and disease surveillance and control, with special regard to early detection of interhuman transmission chains; (iii) preparedness activities, including vaccine and drug stockpiling; (iv) evaluation of  interventions, from containment to mitigation measures, including reactive vaccination strategies; and (v) funding mechanisms and sustainability of preparedness efforts, intervention, and health capacity, with special regard to poor-resource countries. We do hope to receive as many high-quality contributions as possible, in order to stimulate the debate on pandemics and help the journal become a privileged international tribune on issues related to pandemics.

Prof. Dr. Giovanni Rezza
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pandemics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.