Microbiology China endorses the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki and expects that all investigations involving humans will have been performed in accordance with these principles. All manuscripts reporting human experimentation must include:

• A statement that the human investigations were performed after approval by an institutional review board or ethics committee and in accordance with an assurance filed with and approved by the Department of Health and Human Services, where appropriate. For those investigators who do not have formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed.

• A statement that the investigators obtained informed consent from each participant or each participant’s guardian.

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.