This story is not trivial! It is full of gray areas, but the scientific journal Mali Médical was very courageous and made an excellent decision. This story illustrates obscure practices among colleagues.
Mali Médical has been publishing regularly for over 20 years
It was an old paper newspaper which has its website. The articles are open access, and the authors do not pay royalties. The journal is in PubMed, MEDLINE and has no impact factor (Web of Science database). It deserves to be listed in AJOL (African Journals Online), a database which contains 843 African newspapers, most of them in English. The articles are in French with an English summary. Based in Bamako, the editorial committee works and uses peer-review as best it can. I know this newspaper, some of its editors, and I did a week of training for this committee about ten years ago. There is no need to explain the difficulties of publishing a scientific journal in Mali.
The first retraction of Mali Médical: incredible
In short, an Ivorian team published an article in 2013 in a predatory English-language journal. The same team published the same article in 2023, translated into French, with some changes to the authors.
- If you consult Mali Médical, you will observe that an article was retracted for plagiarism, dated October 2, 2024. The article, published at the beginning of 2023, is no longer on the site, which I regret for the archives. It was titled: PREVALENCE OF VIRAL HEPATITIS B INFECTION AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS IN CHILDREN OF Ivorian SUBJECTS CARRYING HBSAg.
The names of the authors are: Hamidine Illa, Doffou Adjéka Stanislas, Kouamé Hatrydt Dimitri, Bangoura Demba Aboubacar, Yaogo Abdelatif, Kissi Henriette, Alassan Kouamé Mahassadi, Yao Bathaix Fulgence, Attia Koffi Alain. They are affiliated with two services: Department of Medicine and hepato-gastroenterology of Yopougon University Hospital, Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Danga Medical Clinic, Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
Here is the English abstract of this 2023 article which was retracted from the journal, but still in PubMed without mention of the retraction (the abstract alone is in PubMed):
Objectives: To determine the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in children (contact subjects) of chronic HBsAg (index subjects) and to investigate the factors associated with this infection in these children. Patients and methods: this was a retrospective crosssectional study of HBsAg positive patients (index subjects), whose families (contact subjects: spouses and children) were routinely screened for HBV infection. Results: The median age of our 44 subjects was 43.1 ± 7.49 years. The average number of children per index subject was 2.3 ± 1.1. The median age of the 92 children was 9.3± 4.55 (1 to 15 years) and 43 (44.8%) were vaccinated against HBV. The prevalence of HBV infection was 24%. The independent factors associated with HBV infection in children were HBV DNA for index subjects> 2000 IU/ml (OR = 11.5; p = 0.001), the existence of HBV in both parents (OR = 7.9; p = 0.03) and no HBV vaccination in children (OR = 30.9; p = 0.003). Conclusion: Immunization coverage of children of index subjects was insufficient. In addition to vertical transmission, the risk of intrafamilial transmission was high in the presence of at least one of the three associated factors.
- The plagiarized article was published in 2013 in a predatory journal (Open Journal of Gastroenterology) with this title: Prevalence of hepatitis B infection and factors associated in children of Ivorian HBsAg carrier subjects
The names of the authors are (new in bold, old in italics): Koffi Alain Attia, Ya Henriette Kissi, Stanislas Doffou, Demba Bangoura, Roseline Flora Wilson, Georges Boughan, Fulgence Yao Bathaix, Kouame Alassan Mahassadi, Mohame Savegh, Therese N’dri-Yoman. They are affiliated with the same two services.
Here is the summary of this 2013 article in English:
Aims of the Study: 1) Determine the Prevalence of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in children (contact subjects) of chronic Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) carrier subjects (index subjects); 2) Search for factors associated with HBV infection in these children. Patients and Methods: Retrospective-crosssectional study (January 5th, 2006 through December 31st, 2012). Studied parameters: biological and clinical characteristics of index subjects; Prevalence of HBsAg and Hepatitis B core antibody (HBcAb) in their children. Search for the HBV infection associated factors in the children (univariate analyses through Chi-square or Fisher’s exact test; multivariate analysis through a backward logistic regression). Results: Our 44 subjects’ median age was 43.1 ± 7.49 years and 88.6% of them lived with a spouse. Average number of children per index subjects was 2.3 ± 1.1. Our 92 children’s median age was 9.3 ± 4.55 (ranging from 1 to 15 years), and 43 (44.8%) were vaccinated against HBV. HBV infection prevalence was 24% (23/96 of which, 4 were HBsAg positive and 19 HBcAb positive subjects without HBsAg). Independent factors associated with HBV infection in children of index subjects were HBV DNA for index subjects >2000 IU/ml (OR = 11.5; p = 0.001), existence of HBV in two parents (OR = 7.9; p = 0.03) and absence of HBV vaccination in the children (OR = 30.9; p = 0.003). Conclusion: Immunization coverage for children of index subjects was insufficient, especially before the introduction of HBV vaccine into the enlarged vaccination program. Outside vertical transmission, those children were more exposed to HBV intrafamilial transmission risk when they were not immunized against HBV, when both parents were infected and when HBV viremia in index subjects was higher than 2000 IU/ml.
BRAVO to Mali Médical which detected this plagiarism after publication.
