Journal Summary:
Food and medication in African continent are mainly natural plant driven and dependent on the status of the environment. We need insight into human collection and uses of medicinal plants, foodstuffs and nutraceutical products, as well as the use pharmaceutical and provision of dietetic and health services to predict the status of the environment and relate it to health sustainability to promote the adherence and respect of key protocols in the nutrition and health systems of African countries.
RUFSO Health-Environment Sustainability (HES) is a bilingual English-French journal dealing with issues of sustainability in the provision of food, nutrition and health services as well as ecosystem services.

History of the journal:
The journal started in 2018 as a bi-annual special French edition of Health and Environment Journal, the Basel Health College based Journal (Switzerland) for the academic staff of the "Institut Supérieur des Techniques Médicales - Marie Reine de la Paix de Kenge (ISTM-MRP KENGE)" (DR Congo), under the leadership of the General Manager Prof Dr. Cush Ngonzo Luwesi (PhD, MSC, MA) and the assistance of Prof Dr. John Inipavudu Baelani (PhD, MPH) and the support of two International NGOs, namely Doctors of Africa and the Foundation of Young Volunteers for Environment (FYVE). The success of the previous successive editions laid a basis for the emergence of a full-fledged journal publication under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Baptiste Nizeyimana the Chief Editor of RUFSO (Revue Université sans frontière pour une société ouverte).

Open access policy:
This journal is open access and distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). It relies on voluntary donations and no-remunerated independent appraisers and members of the editorial board from the academia as well as health and environmental services, particularly from the medical schools, health colleges and hospitals as well as water and environment graduate schools and the industry at large.

The focus and scope of the journal:
Food is by excellence our first medicine, so are medicinal plants our second drugs, including the kingdom of animals. All primates’ feeding behavior has both nutritional properties as well as some dietetic and medicinal characteristics. The similarities of biochemist, physiologic and genetic processes of nutrition and dietetics among human-beings and other primates are a vast field of research that has been fully explored, from food gathering to ingestion and digestion as well as the apprehension of the trade-offs between nutrition and intoxication. Their medicinal interest is explained by unbalanced food nutrients and the presence of toxins ingested in the body. However, very little attention has been put on the environmental value of the optimal amount of food and plants being used for medicinal and nutritional purposes. Considering the emergence and changing patterns of infectious diseases caused by protozoans and viruses, notably Coronaviruses, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, malaria and other neglected tropical diseases, and given the growing resistance of vectors towards the available insecticidal molecules on the markets, the practice of hygiene and distancing in a clean environment have been propounded as remedies. But for how long would this environment remain safe? That is where sustainability comes in. It is thus urgent to seek for new ways of managing diseases with less active pharmaceutical molecules and associated toxins while monitoring the use of molecules from plants and their ecosystems, to effectively combat these emerging threats. This journal treasures the last decades results of indigenous medicines and pharmacological research on plant uses for curative medicine and prevention of diseases to propose new pathways for ensuring sustainability between health practices and environmental conservation.

In this regard, topics that are relevant to this journal includes but are not limited to:

1. Updates on nutritional diseases, emerging infectious diseases and the changing patterns of protozoans and viruses: new assessments and lessons learned on combating Kwashiorkor, Konzo, Marasm, Coronaviruses, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, Influenza, malaria and other neglected tropical diseases
2. Disease prevention, waste management and economic engineering: Tradeoffs between food, nutrition and health services on one end, and waste management and ecosystem services on the other; cost-benefit analysis and willingness to pay for environmental restoration, including watersheds and other ecosystems
3. Toxins control and nutraceuticals: Water, food, ethnomedicinal and pharmacological plant uses; biochemistry: swallowing toxins and plants, and their implications on gastrointestinal parasites control.
4. Zoo-pharmacognosy in great apes and Mineral elements of primate diets: The use of herb gardens and medicinal plants by primates living in the zoos and its implications on the biochemistry of primates, including humans
5. Sustainability during the pandemics: Environmental innovations, social norms and health protocols as well as other lessons learned on cultural roots, the use of hygiene, waste management and environmental protection during the emergence of infectious diseases, including Coronaviruses, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, Spanish Influenza, malaria and other neglected tropical diseases

Copyright notice:
Authors have several assets for publishing with us, including a rigorous peer review process; the ownership of authorship and copyrights; the global archiving of articles; the immediate and unrestricted online access; and, a unique DOI for all their articles.

Sponsorship disclosure:
The Journal encourages and receives all voluntary donations, authors contributions and no-remunerated independent appraisers or reviewers. For the launching of the previous special editions, it fully relied on the funding of two International NGOs, namely Doctors of Africa and the Foundation of Young Volunteers for Environment (FYVE). But as per now, it is expecting the financial support of the members of the public and development partners.

Privacy statement:
All rights are reserved for copying and disseminating all the materials of this journal in any country, without prior authorization of the chief editor and the authors. However, the Journal is not responsible for the opinions expressed by the authors.

Journal publication schedule:
The average number of weeks it takes for an article to go through the editorial review process for this journal is seven weeks, including standard publications and desk rejects .
There are five key steps:

1. Preliminary checked and assignment: From manuscript submission to the initial decision on the article, it takes at least three days. During that period, the manuscript is submitted to preliminary checks and adjustments prior to being assigned to two independent reviewers.
2. Peer Review: During a minimum of two weeks and three days, the reviewers verify the paper and recommends actions for improvement of the manuscript
3. Revisions: Upon completion of their review, the reviewers pass the manuscript to the editorial team who will have three weeks to forward it to the authors for revisions and re-forward it to Reviewers for their consent or rejection
4. Final editorial decision: The editorial team decides within three days upon on the publication or rejection of the article for takes the final decision
5. Printing and posting: The manuscript is finally submitted for lay-out and printing prior to being published online.