Dear Tamar, Alisa, and Ekaterine,

In follow-up to my request provide a list of contributors for the upcoming article for peer-review publication, I would like to clarify the inclusion and exclusion criteria as decided during the last meeting of the Executive Group of the International Steering Committee for Solidarity Trial as follows:

1. Beyond the national Principal Investigators, it was agreed that hospital PIs and hospital researchers that acted as randomizers (having randomized at least 1 patient), and those researchers responsible for outcome data collection can be included as co-authors. Any hospital PI and/or researchers from hospitals that did not enrol any patients into the Solidarity Trial should not be included for authorship.
2. Additional individuals involved in coordination or other scientific support of the trial can be included in a separate acknowledgement list.

In the event these criteria were clear to you and formed the basis of what you sent already, then there is not follow-up action for you. If this is not the case, the WHO Secretariat would be grateful if you could update the authorship list accordingly. Please be sure to separate the names of those to acknowledged and indicate the role for which they should be acknowledged. The Excel template has been revised to accommodate for this distinction.

This request is time-sensitive and lead authors to the paper would very much appreciate getting this information back as soon as feasible.

All the very best

Patrick

Dear Tamar, Alisa, and Ekaterine,

We are reaching out to you regarding an article on Solidarity Trial for peer-reviewed publication in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The intent is to publish the first set of findings and based on the enrolment data collected to date – including patients randomized in your country. This was possible thanks to your leadership as Principal Investigator together with hospital PIs through their tireless dedication.

In order to ensure we can include and acknowledge all contributors to the study, we’d be grateful if you could return to us the attached Excel file completed with the information requested. The table includes 5 columns (country, last name of the PI, initials, email, and affiliation). The rows are for each person to list.

Please note that the ICMJE rules for authorship are being used for this article. More details can be found on this link.

http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

Look forward to getting this information back as soon as possible.

All the very best,

Patrick

(on behalf of the WHO Secretariat)