COVID-19 vaccines uptake: Public knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance among adult Africans

John K. Ahiakpa; Nanma T. Cosmas; Felix E. Anyiam; Kingsley O. Enalume; Ibrahim Lawan; Ijuptil B. Gabriel; Chinonyelum L. Oforka; Hamze G. Dahir; Salisu T. Fausat; Maureen A. Nwobodo; Getrude P. Massawe; Adachukwu S. Obagha; Debra U. Okeh; Benjamin Karikari; Samuel T. Aderonke; Olushola M. Awoyemi; Idowu A. Aneyo; Funmilayo V. Doherty

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0268230

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionDecember 10, 2021
5 Jan 2022 Decision Letter - Sanjay Kumar Singh Patel, Editor PONE-D-21-36946COVID-19 vaccines uptake: Public knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance among adult Africa nsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Ahiakpa, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 19 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf. 2. During our internal checks, the in-house editorial staff noted that you conducted research or obtained samples in another country. Please check the relevant national regulations and laws applying to foreign researchers and state whether you obtained the required permits and approvals. Please address this in your ethics statement in both the manuscript and submission information. In addition, please ensure that you have suitably acknowledged the contributions of any local collaborators involved in this work in your authorship list and/or Acknowledgements. Authorship criteria is based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals - for further information please see here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/authorship. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: [We had no funding for this study]. At this time, please address the following queries: a) Please clarify the sources of funding (financial or material support) for your study. List the grants or organizations that supported your study, including funding received from your institution. b) State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” c) If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders. d) If you did not receive any funding for this study, please state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 4 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table. 5. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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: In this paper entitled "COVID-19 vaccines uptake: Public knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance among adult Africa ns", the authors investigated adult African inhabitant's views toward vaccination and their participation possibility in governments efforts to get citizens vaccinated. Adult Africans' responses were taken in the manuscript using a cross-sectional online survey, and the factors associated with willingness to accept the COVID-19 vaccine and participation were evaluated. The results indicated that more than two-thirds of African adults would not receive the COVID-19 vaccine as they have skepticism about it. The manuscript is easy to understand and technically correct. Furthermore, the manuscript is statistically sound and has potential. Therefore, it may be considered for publication after minor corrections. Minor comments: 1) The English may be improved for the manuscript. 2) In the title, define adult Africa ns?. The authors should cross-check all abbreviations in the manuscript. Initially, define in the full name followed by abbreviations. 3) Introduction section may be minor polished with information such as - i) COVID-19 details, symptoms and prevention strategies including health status and diet i.e. doi: 10.1007/s12088-020-00908-0; doi: 10.1007/s12088-020-00893-4; ii) about COVID-19 variants and their future challenges i.e. doi: 10.1007/s15010-021-01734-2. 4) Design of the study and participants: How the author determines the number of participants?. Which reference study or formula is used to calculate the participant number for the study?. 5) Introduction, the importance of this study may be more specifically highlighted. 7) The author may provide a paragraph regarding challenges or prospects of study in the discussion and provide a limitation of the study. Reviewer #2: 1. Various symptoms and prevention strategy of Covid-19 should be provided. 2. The variant of Covid-19 are measure concern for the treatment of infected patients. so, few more information may be provide. 3. Please provide include the data how the various vaccine are effective for the treatment of Covid-19 and their variant in the discussion section. 4. please illustrate or highlighted the summary for the significant of present study (Add 1or 2 figures). 5. Please combine 1-3 figures in one figure as they are very small. ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: my Comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268230.r001
Revision 1
31 Jan 2022 Author Response Dear Editor, We are grateful to you, and the rreviewers for giving us the opportunity to improve the scientific quality of our manuscript. We have revised the manuscript and prepared point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments. We look forward to your decision soon. Thank you. Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf. #Authors’ response: We revised the sections are recommended. 2. During our internal checks, the in-house editorial staff noted that you conducted research or obtained samples in another country. Please check the relevant national regulations and laws applying to foreign researchers and state whether you obtained the required permits and approvals. Please address this in your ethics statement in both the manuscript and submission information. In addition, please ensure that you have suitably acknowledged the contributions of any local collaborators involved in this work in your authorship list and/or Acknowledgements. Authorship criteria is based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals - for further information please see here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/authorship. #Authors’ response: The study was conducted online using the chain-referral approach where participants voluntarily participated in the survey. Consortium members/co-authors in the respective countries didn’t have any influence in the participation of the study. Thus, the voluntary nature and non-geographical specificity of the study preclude from obtaining ethical clearance from each country. Thus, a recognised ethical clearance from the study’s origin, Somalia should be adequate. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: [We had no funding for this study]. At this time, please address the following queries: a) Please clarify the sources of funding (financial or material support) for your study. List the grants or organizations that supported your study, including funding received from your institution. #Authors’ response: We didn’t receive any funding from any agency. b) State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” #Authors’ response: There is was no funding for this study c) If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders. #Authors’ response: This is not applicable d) If you did not receive any funding for this study, please state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. #Authors’ response: The authors received no specific funding for this work 4. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 4 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table. #Authors’ response: We have cited the table in the revised manuscript. See L268-L300 in the revised manuscript. 5. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. #Authors’ response: We have reviewed the reference list and updated it where necessary Response to Review Comments Dear Editor, We are submitting the revised version of our manuscript with point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments. We are grateful to you, and the reviewers for the opportunity to improve the scientific quality/rigour of our manuscript. Below are point-by-point responses to issues raised by the reviewers and yourself. Corrections were directly effected in the manuscript in track changes. Thank you. Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions 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 Reviewer #2: Yes #Authors’ response: Thank you for your assessment and comments 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes #Authors’ response: Thank you for your comments 3. 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 Reviewer #2: Yes #Authors’ response: Thank you for the comments 4. 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 Reviewer #2: Yes #Authors’ response: We appreciate the comments 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: In this paper entitled "COVID-19 vaccines uptake: Public knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance among adult Africans", the authors investigated adult African inhabitant's views toward vaccination and their participation possibility in governments efforts to get citizens vaccinated. Adult Africans' responses were taken in the manuscript using a cross-sectional online survey, and the factors associated with willingness to accept the COVID-19 vaccine and participation were evaluated. The results indicated that more than two-thirds of African adults would not receive the COVID-19 vaccine as they have skepticisms about it. The manuscript is easy to understand and technically correct. Furthermore, the manuscript is statistically sound and has potential. Therefore, it may be considered for publication after minor corrections. #Authors’ response: We appreciate the comments and recommendation Minor comments: 1) The English may be improved for the manuscript. #Authors’ response: We have revised the manuscript where necessary. 2) In the title, define adult Africans?. The authors should cross-check all abbreviations in the manuscript. Initially, define in the full name followed by abbreviations. #Authors’ response: We defined the category of participants in the study in the methodology section. See L139 in the revised manuscript. 3) Introduction section may be minor polished with information such as - i) COVID-19 details, symptoms and prevention strategies including health status and diet i.e. doi: 10.1007/s12088-020-00908-0; doi: 10.1007/s12088-020-00893-4; ii) about COVID-19 variants and their future challenges i.e. doi: 10.1007/s15010-021-01734-2. #Authors’ response: We defined the category of participants in the study in the methodology section. See L139 in the revised manuscript. We have equally updated the introduction with the specific recommendations. See L79-94; L100-L107; and L126-144 in the revised manuscript. 4) Design of the study and participants: How the author determines the number of participants? Which reference study or formula is used to calculate the participant number for the study? #Authors’ response: The study was conducted using random selection process with a cross-sectional sampling (snowballing) or chain-referral approach where participants voluntarily participated in the survey. The conventional Cochran formula [29] was used to determine the starting sample size; no = \\frac{Z2pq}{e2}, where e = the desired precision level (margin of error), where p is the fraction of population, q is 1-p, and Z is the Z-value found in a Z table. A total of 365 participants completed the closed-ended questionnaire for our study. At a 95% level of confidence, this corresponds to a 2 % margin of error [29]. See L210-227 5) Introduction, the importance of this study may be more specifically highlighted. #Authors’ response: We stated the relevance of the study specifically in the introduction. See lines 111-129. 7) The author may provide a paragraph regarding challenges or prospects of study in the discussion and provide a limitation of the study. #Authors’ response: We have rephrased this in the discussion section as recommended. See L495-501 Reviewer #2: 1. Various symptoms and prevention strategy of Covid-19 should be provided. #Authors’ response: We have incorporated this in the revised manuscript 2. The variant of Covid-19 are measure concern for the treatment of infected patients. so, few more information may be provide. #Authors’ response: We have included information on this in the revised manuscript 3. Please provide include the data how the various vaccine is effective for the treatment of Covid-19 and their variant in the discussion section. #Authors’ response: We provided percentage efficacies of the various vaccines in the introduction. See lines 126-137. 4. please illustrate or highlighted the summary for the significant of present study (Add 1or 2 figures). #Authors’ response: We have incorporated this in the revised manuscript. See L495-501. 5. Please combine 1-3 figures in one figure as they are very small. #Authors’ response: We have merged these figures as recommended. Thank you. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Authors response to review comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268230.r002
26 Apr 2022 Decision Letter - Carla Pegoraro, Editor COVID-19 vaccines uptake: Public knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance among adult Africans PONE-D-21-36946R1 Dear Dr. Ahiakpa, 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. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Carla Pegoraro Division Editor PLOS ONE 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 Reviewer #2: (No Response) Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed ******** 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 Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: 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: In this paper entitled "COVID-19 vaccines uptake: Public knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance among adult Africans ", the authors have addressed all the comments and have no technical deficiency for rejection. The paper is eligible for acceptance in the journal. Reviewer #2: The authors have revised the manuscript carefully. So, I think it can be accepted for publication. Reviewer #3: (No Response) ****** 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:** Aditya Kumar Sharma Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268230.r003
Formally Accepted
5 May 2022 Acceptance Letter - Carla Pegoraro, Editor PONE-D-21-36946R1 COVID-19 vaccines uptake: Public knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance among adult Africans Dear Dr. Ahiakpa: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr Carla Pegoraro Staff Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268230.r004

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