The WPSJ has been made aware of a plagiarism issue regarding a paper published in March 2017. The recent paper entitled ‘Host immune responses and vaccination against avian pathogenicEscherichia coli’ by T. Azeem, S.A. Abid, W. Ahmad, A. Aslam, M.L. Sohail, S. Jaleel and S. Umar (Volume 73, Issue 1 March 2017, pp. 29-44) has been shown to plagiarize elements of another review entitled ‘Avian colibacillosis: still many black holes’ published in FEMS Microbiology Letters, 362, 2015, fnv118 and authored by Rodrigo Guabiraba and Catherine Schouler. Multiple sections of text, Figure 1 and Table 1 were reproduced without adaptation or reference to the original publication.

As a result, WPSJ editors have upheld the concerns expressed and, after detailed assessment of the reproduced sections, and communication with the authors to ascertain whether or not permission was granted (which they could not confirm), it has been decided that this paper will be retracted forthwith.