PAMJ is fully open access with no subscription fees. However, unlike many predatory journals that charge authors $2,000+ (APCs), PAMJ offers automatic fee waivers for African researchers. If you are based at a university in Uganda or a hospital in Benin, you can publish for free.

Founded in 2008 by Dr. Raoul Kamadjeu and Dr. Landry Tsague, the Pan African Medical Journal (PAMJ) serves as a premier, independent platform for African researchers to publish and disseminate work on health challenges. By 2019, the journal expanded to handle thousands of submissions annually and established its own custom publishing infrastructure, the PAMJ Manuscript Hut. Read the full history at Pan African Medical Journal The Pan African Medical Journal in 2019 - a year in review 6 Apr 2020 —

The sustainability of The Pan African Medical Journal depends on the community. Researchers can:

PAMJ’s most distinctive feature is its triple-blind peer review (author, reviewer, and editor identities concealed) coupled with an unusually short turnaround time (target: 4–6 weeks from submission to first decision).

| Feature | PAMJ Approach | Traditional High-Impact Journal | |---------|---------------|----------------------------------| | APCs | None (waived for all African corresponding authors) | $1,000–$5,000+ | | Review focus | Methodological soundness + local relevance | Novelty + generalizability | | Language | English, French (bilingual abstracts) | Predominantly English | | Publication speed | Fast (average 45 days) | Slow (6–12 months) | | Article types | Case reports, field studies, short communications (valued highly) | Often deprioritized |

Critics argue that speed may compromise rigor; however, PAMJ counters that in outbreak settings (Ebola 2014–2016, COVID-19), rapid dissemination of observational data saves lives. Proponents call it a "pragmatic epidemiology" model.

This is significantly cheaper than major commercial open-access journals (which charge $2,000–$5,000), making PAMJ accessible to underfunded African universities.

As of 2025, PAMJ does not yet have a traditional Journal Impact Factor (JIF) from Clarivate’s Web of Science. However, many African universities and promotion committees have explicitly recognized PAMJ as a trustworthy, peer-reviewed source. Increasingly, funding bodies like the Wellcome Trust and the NIH accept PAMJ publications for grant reporting due to its PMC indexing.

Why the lack of JIF is not a problem: The JIF system is often criticized for penalizing regional journals. PAMJ’s value lies in its clinical and policy impact on the ground, not in an abstract metric. Many ministries of health across Africa use PAMJ articles to revise national treatment guidelines.