PONE-D-21-19327

Magnitude of Syphilis Sero-status And Associated Factors among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care in Jinka Town Public Health Facilities, Southern Ethiopia, 2020

PLOS ONE

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Jianguo Wang, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: REVIEW

of manuscript number PONE-D-21-19327, entitled “ Magnitude of Syphilis Sero-status And Associated Factors among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care in Jinka Town Public Health Facilities, Southern Ethiopia, 2020”

The manuscript submitted for review provides epidemiological information on the distribution of syphilis among pregnant women in an Ethiopian town. As well stated in the Introduction Section, the disease is one of the most important global health problems. As the Sub-Saharan population is of increased risk with relatively high seroprevalence, information about syphilis epidemiology is urgently needed. The work fits well in the scope of the journal and although this is a simple analysis that adds nothing to the global current knowledge, it may provide useful information for the national and regional health authorities to implement more adequate prevention and information programs. The paper is written in simple and very clear language that makes it readable by a broad target audience (however language and style editing is needed; someone should carefully read the manuscript and correct the grammar errors). Additionally, all analyses used are well and sufficiently described.

However, the following deficiencies should be indicated:

• The study design and the paper design are very similar to those of an already published work dealing with the same research problem (High seroprevalence of syphilis infection among pregnant women in Yiregalem hospital southern Ethiopia by Anteneh Amsalu, Getachew Ferede and Demissie Assegu, published in BMC Infectious Diseases, 2018, 18). I have the impression that the authors have taken the above-mentioned paper and have applied the same design to a different population.

• The confirmatory character of the work. The paper confirms well-known facts and no novel associations of syphilis seroprevalence in pregnant were found.

• The limitations of the work are not stated and discussed in the Discussion section.

• Abbreviations, such as ANC, CS, COR, AOR, although clear, should be clarified at the first time of use.

• Figures 2 & 3 are unnecessary. The information given in the text is enough.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Tatina Todorova

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Magnitude of Syphilis Sero-status And Associated Factors among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care in Jinka Town Public Health Facilities, Southern Ethiopia, 2020

PONE-D-21-19327R1

Dear Dr. Getie,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Jianguo Wang, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have adequately addressed all comments raised in a previous round of review and I don't have any additional comments.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Tatina Todorova