The University of Lusaka (UNILUS) is pleased to present the first issue of its peer-reviewed Journal of Tropical Medicine & Epidemiology (JTME). The journal is produced under the auspices of the School of Postgraduate Studies in partnership with the School of Medicine & Health Sciences at UNILUS. The journal will be online and, initially, be published twice a year in January and July, beginning with this July 2026 issue. Target sources of articles to be published will include UNILUS students, staff, and external non-UNILUS authors.

The primary objective of any scientific journal is the dissemination of scientific knowledge. To that, we add an explicit additional objective: to share innovations and potentially transformative practices for problem-solving and development. Thus, with JTME, scientific publications will stimulate thinking and research, while contributing to ongoing global debates such as artificial intelligence in public health and the control of global pandemics.

The journal focuses on public health and related areas, particularly those associated with the health and demography of tropical populations within the One Health framework. It is a goal of JTME to contribute to the ongoing sharing of knowledge and best practices across the tropics, a region of the world bearing much of the global disease burden.

At the core of this journal's resolve are students across our various learning programmes, especially Master's and PhD students who are required to publish in order to graduate but have not had a more accessible platform to fulfil that requirement. JTME is that platform for students to express themselves in their respective academic pursuits at UNILUS. It is hoped that students will now be more motivated and able to publish their research outputs.

Yet, the level of scrutiny and rigor of the peer-review process for student manuscripts will be no less demanding. Student manuscripts will be subjected to the same standard of evaluation as those submitted by staff and external authors.

In that spirit, JTME invites submission of manuscripts for publication at any time of the year. The University also welcomes critical feedback on the quality of the journal, as this is the only way to ensure a publication that adds meaningful and relevant value to both academia and industry.